I've been coding for over a decade, and I keep coming back to a question that shapes how I approach every new project: is writing clean code more important than shipping features quickly? In my experience, skipping refactoring to meet a deadline often leads to technical debt that slows us down later, but sometimes a quick prototype is exactly what a client needs to validate an idea. I've seen both approaches work and fail, so I'm curious how other developers balance these pressures when time is tight and stakeholders are waiting.