The Romanian Developer's Code, a Romanian-to-corporate dictionary and official excuses
Dor de codul românesc
Dor (n.) — the Romanian word for missing something you didn't know you needed. Codul — the code. Put together: a love letter to Romanian developers, and a field guide for the PMs who estimate them and the CTOs who hire them.
No forms. No cookies. No recruiters opening with “hi dear”. Promise. Written by Sergiu Vlad.
What's with the dor?
Over the last twenty years Romania has exported more developers than anyone can count. Some went to Zürich, some to Berlin, some only as far as a Slack channel on California time. All of them kept the same reflex: when it works, they say „lasă că merge” (leave it, it works). When it doesn't, they say „se rezolvă” (it'll get sorted).
Dor de codul românesc is where we recognise each other: the ones here, the ones out there, the managers who learned to read between the lines, and the companies that found out a Romanian developer gets things fixed.
Not an agency. Not a recruiting platform. We collect nothing, not even feedback. Just the truth, with its sense of humour in plain sight.
The Romanian Developer's Code
Every nation has a code. Ours is not enforced, but it is respected.
- Art. 1.Every bug manifests exclusively in production, on a Friday, after 5 pm.
- Art. 2.“Works on my machine” is admissible evidence.
- Art. 3.„Lasă că merge” (leave it, it works) is not a deployment strategy. (It is.)
- Art. 4.Comments are written in English, variables in Romanian, and
listaClienti2Finalis national heritage. - Art. 5.Diacritics are optional until they reach the database.
- Art. 6.Estimates are given in days and read in weeks.
- Art. 7.Any TODO older than two years becomes documentation.
- Art. 8.Coffee is not a perk. It is infrastructure.
- Art. 9.The Romanian developer fixes it. Doesn't know how yet, but it gets fixed.
- Art. 10.The 15-minute meeting lasts an hour and must legally end with "let's set up a follow-up next week."
- Art. 11.The production server password is passed down orally, from generation to generation, like grandma's cake recipe.
- Art. 12.Every project had one guy who knew everything. He left three years ago. His name is still in the crontab.
- Art. 13.The official project documentation is a four-minute voice note in the team chat, from 2019.
- Art. 14.The file config_final_GOOD_dont_delete.json is not deleted. Nobody knows why. Nobody asks.
- Art. 15."Who wrote this garbage?" is a rhetorical question. git blame always answers: you, eight months ago.
- Art. 16.A "five-minute task" is, by definition, any task nobody has opened yet.
- Art. 17.Tests are written after the incident, in memory of the fallen.
- Art. 18.The only laptop that can deploy belongs to a colleague currently on a beach holiday, with no signal.
- Art. 19.The temporary fix from 2016 is now a listed historical monument and cannot be touched without a permit.
- Art. 20.In the absence of a spec, the principle of "you know, like those other guys have it" applies.
- Art. 21.On the daily standup, cameras stay off. Official reason: "my internet is bad." Actual reason: pyjamas.
- Art. 22.Refactoring is scheduled for "when we have time," a fixed calendar date that never arrives.
- Art. 23.Every Christmas, grandma asks if you can fix her printer. You can. That is, in fact, your real job description.
- Art. 24.This Code enters into force on publication and is amended exclusively by pull request.
Have an article to propose? Open a pull request
The official excuse generator
For standup, for the retro, for the client. Certified under Art. 2.
It's not a bug, it's undocumented behaviour. Once I document it, it's a feature.
All the excuses, for long-term planning (16)
- It's not a bug, it's undocumented behaviour. Once I document it, it's a feature.
- First the internet went down, then the power, then my motivation. Only two came back.
- I'm waiting on a review from the colleague who said "I'll look right now." Two sprints ago.
- It was done, then I updated one dependency and now nothing is done. Not the project, not me.
- It works perfectly on staging. Production just has a different personality.
- I worked from my grandma's village this week. Out there, 4G is more of a concept.
- The code is finished. It just doesn't compile yet.
- Found my exact problem on a forum from 2011. Last reply: "fixed it, thanks." No details.
- The requirements changed three times. I built version two, which was the right one.
- My estimate was correct. Reality is the one running late.
- The tests pass. I haven't run them, but they have the face of tests that pass.
- It was the May Day long weekend, which over here runs roughly from April 28 to May 5.
- I fixed the bug, but the fix broke something else, which I fixed, but… then the sprint ended.
- The ticket said "small tweak." It turned out to be a database migration.
- It was the cache. I cleared the cache. Now it's broken for a different reason, but at least the cache is clean.
- It's not late, it's Romanian-style delivery: everything the night before, but with passion.
git log --oneline, the Iași team
Real commit messages. Names have been changed, the code has not.
Romanian-to-corporate dictionary
For managers abroad who work with Romanian developers. Contextual translation, from experience, free of charge.
| They say | It means |
|---|---|
| merge și așa | acceptable technical debt |
| se rezolvă | unblocked; ETA unknown |
| hai că-i simplu | three sprints |
| nu-i nicio problemă | there is a problem |
| vezi că… | critical warning |
| la mine merge | cannot reproduce |
| îl bag repede | hotfix, no tests |
| mai vedem | won't fix |
| să nu ne grăbim | they know something you don't |
| e ok, dar… | it is not ok |
| e doar un if | minor scope adjustment |
| am pus un try-catch | robust error-handling strategy implemented |
| l-am testat | manually verified in a representative environment |
| am vorbit cu ăla de la backend | cross-team alignment achieved |
| facem pe repede, apoi facem bine | phased delivery approach |
| ultima modificare, pe bune | final scope freeze (v4) |
| las' că văd eu | "I'll take ownership of this." (You won't hear of it again until it breaks.) |
| nu e de la noi | "The root cause appears to be upstream." |
| am înțeles | "Fully aligned. Moving to implementation." |
| ce-a vrut să zică poetul? | "We'd like to clarify a few requirements." |
| cine a scris asta? | "Let's run a blameless post-mortem." (It was them.) |
| Am o întrebare. | There's a hole in your architecture. You have about 30 seconds to spot it yourself. |
| Mă uit diseară. | Fixed by morning. Do not ask when they slept. |
| Păi… | Brace for a 20-minute, annoyingly correct explanation of why your plan won't work. |
| Interesant… | Production runs on something nobody understands. Budget accordingly. |
Missing an expression? Add it with a pull request
For PMs, scrum masters and Jira admins
You keep the project alive. We'll tell you what actually happens behind the board.
Jira, translated
| The board says | In reality |
|---|---|
| In Progress | A branch exists. Everything else is a state of mind. |
| Story points: 3 | We all voted 3 so the planning meeting would finally end. |
| Blocked | Waiting on the client since March. Meanwhile, refactoring something nobody asked for. |
| Done | Merged. What happens next is between QA and God. |
| Code Review | 2,000-line PR: "LGTM". 3-line PR: 47 comments about one variable name. |
| Won't Fix | It's a feature now. It goes in the release notes, with enthusiasm. |
| Reopened | The client pressed F5. |
| Priority: Highest | The bug was found by the CEO's son. On his tablet. |
| Backlog | Grandma's attic: nobody goes up there, and nothing is ever allowed to be thrown away. |
| Assignee: Unassigned | Everyone knows about it, nobody touches it. Like the kitchen socket that sparks. |
Estimate converter
| The dev says | You put in the plan |
|---|---|
| "Five minutes" | Five minutes to understand the problem. The rest was not estimated. |
| "Two hours" | Two hours of code, two days of merge conflicts. |
| "One day" | One working day. On the calendar, next Tuesday. |
| "About 80% done" | The other 80% starts now. |
| "It depends" | No idea whatsoever, but it sounds senior. |
| "Tomorrow morning" | Morning in whose time zone? And which tomorrow? |
| "By end of sprint" | The end of a sprint. Not necessarily this one. |
Standup bingo
Tick what you hear. First to complete a line gets to turn their camera off.
For CTOs: what you actually get
You've worked with a Romanian developer and something got fixed that nobody else could fix. Or you haven't, and you've heard. Here's the documentation nobody wrote.
MODEL: RO-DEV · REV. 2026 · MADE IN CLUJ / IAȘI / TIMIȘOARA / BUCUREȘTI
Romanian Developer — technical specifications
- Operating temperature
- From a 17°C open-plan office to a Romanian July with no AC. Same output.
- Power supply
- Coffee (primary), energy drinks (failover), sarmale, i.e. cabbage rolls (holiday UPS).
- Latency
- Chat: 30 seconds. Email: by Friday. "Got a minute?": timeout.
- Compatibility
- Any stack, any language, any framework released last Tuesday. Incompatible with meetings that could have been an email.
- Warranty
- Lifetime, provided requirements don't change after code freeze. Average warranty period: 11 days.
- Known issues
- Refactors without a ticket. Occasionally rewrites everything "because it was simpler that way."
- Power-saving mode
- Kicks in during meetings over an hour: camera off, "my internet's acting up." On some of the fastest broadband in Europe.
- Firmware
- Updated from docs, forums and a 3-upvote comment on a 2014 issue thread that actually worked.
- Load capacity
- 3 projects officially, 5 unofficially, plus the website for their godfather's business (the wedding kind of godfather).
- Included accessories
- Laptop with 47 open tabs, a mug from a 2017 meetup, a thermos of Mum's ciorbă (sour soup).
Frequently asked CTO questions
How fast does a Romanian developer ramp up on our stack?
Week one, they learn it. Week two, they explain why you picked the wrong one.
Will they work in our timezone?
They work your hours, sleep on theirs, and the night before a demo switch to UTC+espresso.
Can I hand them a task with no spec?
Yes. You'll get what you asked for, what you should have asked for, and an awkward question at standup.
What does it mean when a Romanian developer goes quiet in a meeting?
They disagree. And they've already opened a branch with their version.
Do they need micromanagement?
No. Try it and you'll start getting daily check-ins yourself: "So, where's the roadmap?"
How do they react to legacy code?
A sigh, a "who wrote this?", then git blame. Then a long silence. It was them, in 2019.
What happens over Christmas and Easter?
Deploy freeze. They'll hold the cozonac (sweet bread) up to the camera so you know exactly what you're missing.
Do they speak English?
Fluently. Plus C2-level sarcasm, left off the CV out of modesty.
What's the biggest risk?
That they leave. Not for a competitor, but to found a startup on the idea you rejected in Q2.
What clients say
Fictional reviews, inspired by true events.
"Found a bug in our spec before we'd written a single line of code. We're still upset."
"Asked for an MVP. Got a scalable platform and the question: 'why didn't you say so in the first place?'"
"Standup takes 4 minutes. The other 11 are about why our barbecue is not, technically, a barbecue."
"Cut our cloud bill by 40%. Then asked why we pay licences for a tool nobody ever opens."
"Five stars. They refactored out the sixth, said it was redundant."