The project is deployed to a test and "live" environment, but since it is a rebuilt of a very old project that is currently running their business, we don't have to build in production. They needed the rebuilt because the project that is currently in production is not maintainable anymore because of (ironically) technical debt. I agree it is still a weakness that it is not in production, and it needs a strong vision from their side to invest for one or two years into a project without seeing any revenue. However, the environment does not feel right now, I've not very often felt such a misalignment when it comes to a software project.