Some background on the project:
I recently completed a project for a company. The project was a fairly large line of business web site. The customer was a company with no prior experience producing software applications. There was no prior infrastructure, web server, database servers, code repository or formal product owner. I was given a list of requirements and a 6 month completion date. The scope included integrating the web site with their enterprise data ware house, designing the back end database, creating specifically layed out Pdf files on the fly. It also needed to work in english, spanish and mandarin.
I was told their was another developer in-house I would be working with. Once I got a month into the project I found the other developer had no prior web or application development experience. I had to build the infrastructure from scratch. There were issues with the network that cause the application to run slowly. I also completely underestimated the amount of time it takes to create applications for more than one language. I soon realized I was not going to meet the 6th month deadline. I told the I.T. director that there was no way the project would completed on time. I said it would take at least 9 months for a single person to complete the project. She said they couldn't afford to pay over time and just do the best I could.
A smart person would have left the project at this point. I did not do the smart thing. I completed the project within 9 months. I worked 60 hour weeks because I wanted to complete the project and move on.
Many lessons were learned but I still have a dilemma. The company is very small and does not have an in-house developer to support the application. I continue to support the application on nights and weekends. I have asked the company to hire someone to support the application as part of their job but they say they cannot afford it. The application built serves the purpose it was made for but I see absolutely no way it can be maintained.
What are my options?
I feel I really did them a dis-service by creating something for them they cannot maintain and the users don't really want. The project is not getting used as much as it should because I requires a great amount of data entry, the users wanted data to be migrated from an existing file maker application. The data migration was not a part of the scope of the project. Advice needed.