I'm not in a startup, but you should comfortable answering/acknowledging something along the lines of we needed it working quickly, and this did the job for x amount of time based on the time available at the required throughput.
We have the time now for refactoring ... or we'll add a ticket to the backlog, etc.
Second, everyone looks at some code, wonders what idiot did this ... and at some point discovers it was themselves x months/years ago. If you're the primary coder, you'll be getting this a lot. Accept that you've learned and improved since then.
Yea that is about right. Given the knowledge and requests I had at the time I solved it the best way I knew how. No one opts for worse it just happens from time-to-time given business constraints.
I all too frequently wonder who wrote this and see that it was me. You're right that it's a good sign of growth :).
We have the time now for refactoring ... or we'll add a ticket to the backlog, etc.
Second, everyone looks at some code, wonders what idiot did this ... and at some point discovers it was themselves x months/years ago. If you're the primary coder, you'll be getting this a lot. Accept that you've learned and improved since then.
Hope this helps.