For many years, I loved my job. I was working on a production system that saw tens of thousands of orders across the world.

By the time it was 2015, I did not.

I had poured blood, sweat and tears into a ticketing system that kraya built — first for megabus, then for Polskibus. It had broken me, and we were now just limping along.

By 2015, we were spending 101–286 hours each month on a support contract that paid for 60. I raised this with the client and suggested a minimum of a 100% increase. They refused. Instead, they minimised their requests to just about 80 hours each month. Without the development work, I was now making a loss each month providing the resources for this support contract.

I could cancel the contract, but that would involve letting them have the source code, which was otherwise kraya’s property. There was a six month notice period — six months of providing all the support they need to run and to migrate the system to their team.

At some point, I went from taking on the challenge to holding the fort.

I could see that any effort to make things easier would backfire. I built them a feature for free — they complain about one bug in it — and they need it fixed urgently. I loosen the rules and deploy an additional server just before the weekend, letting them know about the risks. Something goes wrong and they are surprised.

The hardest thing for me to change was the belief that the client’s wins were my wins. If anything, the client’s wins were my loss. It meant more unpaid work in the support contract. It meant more complex systems to support and maintain — while every penny was being questioned.

I started to say no. No, we will not deploy new servers on a Thursday because the weekend is too close. No, we will not reduce the QA time on this bit of functionality you want. No, we will not restore reports which could display erroneous data.

It all came to a head in one specific instance where the CEO insisted on speaking to me because they needed something deployed urgently. They needed us to work through the evening or the weekend. I said no. They offered to pay double. I said no. They were not happy.

A few months later, they cancelled the contract.

I remember the meeting. It was amicable and friendly. They asked if I could keep the staff on till the end of the year - they wanted backup in case anything went wrong during the migration.

I wouldn’t want to let them go before Christmas anyway.

I had a brief conversation with my brother to decide what to do next. I already knew that there was nothing left to keep running. We kept it running for three more months until the end of December.

I remember going into the main office, gathering everyone around and delivering the news. Polskibus had cancelled. We are shutting kraya down. We’ll keep going until the end of December.

I remember the Christmas party. It had often ended up being drinks, and being out all night. It didn’t this year - we went home after the meal. The atmosphere was one of sadness and relief. We’d all been through the fires and made it out the other end. It was over.

It was the end of what I’d built over 15 years.

I felt nothing.