The struggle is real. “We could spend an entire sprint chasing down debt which impacts 10% of users, or we could add another feature which will generate 10% additional revenue.”
Management will always choose number 2. Code maintenance is like dead money until something really breaks. The best you can do is quietly have engineers fix low hanging fruit as part of feature sprints, but that requires engineers who give enough fucks to do some extra work.
The struggle is real. “We could spend an entire sprint chasing down debt which impacts 10% of users, or we could add another feature which will generate 10% additional revenue.”
Management will always choose number 2. Code maintenance is like dead money until something really breaks. The best you can do is quietly have engineers fix low hanging fruit as part of feature sprints, but that requires engineers who give enough fucks to do some extra work.