> So is everyone only hiring programmers who write code which can be sloppy and full of technical debt and impossible maintain, as long as the product works okay for now?

My experience says yes. The people hiring programmers usually have no ability to validate a programmer's skill. The only thing they care about is a working application that solves a business problem.

The bulk of code I come across as a consultant is "sloppy and full of technical debt". There are various reasons for it, not all of them reflect on the programmer.