Over time, many different people will work on the system (engineering and operations, both maintaining current behavior and adapting the system to new use cases), and they should all be able to work on it productively.
Imagine working for a company where the median engineer leaves within two years. Some people don't have to imagine that.
Maybe the right approach is to fix the company so its not a problem -- give people opportunities for advancement, and make it suck less on a day to day basis. But you don't have that option.
And maybe the next best option is to just leave within two years. But, your life is complicated and that isn't an option either...
So, you have to ensure thee new batch of young'uns can handle oncall without dragging you in. If you fail, your complicated life will be interrupted and you will need to find another job, and that time between when you realize you failed and when you find that new job is going to suck.
That's why maintainability is important.
Good fucking lord do I miss hope.
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