Estimates suck

Let's be honest; no one really likes providing estimates. There's always this looming sense of dread that we're either going to overestimate or, even worse, underestimate. Despite trying to think of all the potential scenarios and edge cases, in my experience, the latter is usually the reality we're left with.

I think this largely comes from a place of self confidence. You never want to admit to yourself, a client, or a product manager that something that sounds like a small and straightforward task could potentially take you an entire day to implement. But sometimes, that's just the reality. Especially when you're the type of dev who focuses on ensuring your solution is rock solid vs just breezing through work, knocking tasks off the backlog. You make sure your work is well tested, performant, documented and is ultimately something you're proud of.

Unfortunately, in the scenario where a task is underestimated, we're usually presented with two potential outcomes: either you cut corners in an effort to save time, which not only diminishes the quality of your work but introduces the potential for larger problems down the road, or you're honest with the team, let them know the task will need more time, and fear the potential backlash.