Software Engineering Deadlines

Discussions center on the arbitrariness, necessity, and impact of deadlines in software engineering, including managers imposing unrealistic timelines, experiences with missed or fungible deadlines, and debates on balancing deadlines with quality and productivity.

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Keywords

SWE PM STEM AND NOT i.e PI MVP deadlines deadline deliver backlog arbitrary pressure pm rush project fix

Sample Comments

pphysch β€’ Jul 14, 2025 β€’ View on HN

Given how deadlines/timelines tend to (not) work in SWE, this is not surprising.

strikelaserclaw β€’ Nov 8, 2023 β€’ View on HN

Here is something i encountered, sometimes higher ups will put arbitrarily deadlines and act like the entire business depends on you meeting that deadline for a project and after that deadline passes no one seems to care that much about your product, they even allow you more time to do it "right".

sukilot β€’ Jan 24, 2015 β€’ View on HN

Artificial deadlines are not compatible with quality assurance, so the solution is... drop the artificial deadlines.

redler β€’ Jun 6, 2018 β€’ View on HN

β€œOur developers need deadlines. If I don’t give them a deadline, the work will never get done.” β€” Many, Many Managers

jeffbush β€’ Feb 25, 2015 β€’ View on HN

Companies shouldn't have deadlines?

0xcoffee β€’ Jan 1, 2024 β€’ View on HN

Same, but even missing the deadline was realistic.Manager: This is urgent, fix it today. Dev: Rush rush, miss deadline.Manager: Ok no problem, let's move the deadline by a week just in case.

Mikeb85 β€’ Mar 7, 2022 β€’ View on HN

Set deadlines and just ship it...

baby β€’ Jul 25, 2022 β€’ View on HN

I think you need a way to have deadlines, without that you can easily fall into over engineering or completing other unrelated tasks.

MattGaiser β€’ Feb 4, 2022 β€’ View on HN

At least everywhere I have worked, deadlines generally come down from on high, often with no real developer input. If you are lucky, your manager will be successful in fighting for more time. If you somewhat lucky, the missed deadline will be ignored. If you are unlucky, the deadline will approach and people will suddenly disappear.

TrapLord_Rhodo β€’ Sep 11, 2022 β€’ View on HN

why are you letting clients impose deadlines? That's your job to tell them.