Nobody is irreplaceable.

@JoeStrazzere I literally just explained why I was. If you disagree, fine, but then reply to what I wrote, rather than posting some generic motto as if this is instagram or something.

You can consider yourself a green alien if you like. That doesn't make it true. Anyway, why do you care if a few folks frown on your plan? Just do it. Ask for 300% if you feel that they literally cannot fire you. Good luck.

@Aiteru454 - apparently you replaced somebody, so clearly you can be replaced as well. How much pain that costs is a different question.

@Aiteru454 - in the real world, the moment you try to extort "because you can't replace me" money, a good company will start finding your replacement. But good luck anyway.

@Aiteru454 - so you were born knowing the code? No, you had to learn it, just as others can and will do in the future. But sure, feel free to write it in Norwegian,,,

@JoeStrazzere If a company is dumb enough to start finding my replacement while I'm there, I can just mess up their code. So, yeah, good luck with that.

@Aiteru454 - sabotage may not be a good idea, assuming you are able to know they are seeking your replacement.

You are not irreplaceable. If you can learn the code then someone else can learn the code. How painful that is for the business isn't your concern. Should you use your perceived irreplaceably as leverage to ask for a raise, one that is likely well beyond what would be considered reasonable? You could try, but I wouldn't want to wake up every morning looking at that kind of person in the mirror. IMO, you're essentially asking if you can use this situation to extort your employer, which is something that I (and I suspect most other people) would frown upon.

I've had the privilege of being hired with the explanation of what I'd be doing as "figure out what the guy we just fired for gross misconduct was doing". And, to be frank, not having the code stored somewhere where it's not vulnerable to "accidents and mishaps" should be gross misconduct...

@JuliaHayward, You are right. The code base must always be stored in the main branch or trunk where no developers can delete it. Developers can check out the code from the trunk to work on, and then merge their code back to the trunk with a tag. But they don't have the ability to mess up the trunk. That is how a professional company works.

Using the situation to your advantage and taking advantage of the situation are two different approaches. The former is worthwhile within the bounds of reason, the latter isn't worthwhile and isn't behavior that I'd engage in.

So the entire company shuts down whenever you are ill or go on vacation?

So what are you going to do when management realizes the risk and starts replacing this critical system with something more robust? Are they going to realize that once that crappy system is gone, they don't need you any more? There's a very fine line to walk between pointing out that you're hard to replace, and making management aware of just how big a problem it will be if you wake up one morning and decide to quit.

@ColleenV 100% spot on. I thought this attitude died in the 1990s.

Not only is no-one irreplaceable, but the closer you get to that theoretical spot, the more unpromotable you become and actually decrease your big picture value to the company

"The graveyards are full of indispensable people"