Threads like this really help me appreciate my workplace and stay confident in applying pressure to reduce technical debt. I've been the lead at a ~30 person,

Threads like this really help me appreciate my workplace and stay confident in applying pressure to reduce technical debt. I've been the lead at a ~30 person, ~7 dev, ~$5M/yr company for 10 years. As we've grown from < 10 people and 2-3 devs I've had to transition from doing whatever I felt was needed as I found the time to having to get approval across our departments and schedule work across quarters, years, and across a handful or two more people, but I've always been afforded a good deal of trust in my opinion and understanding of the costs and risks of technical debt. I often second-guess my emphasis on improving existing code. To come even remotely close to keeping up takes a lot of developer and QA time and has opportunity cost. Deep down I believe it's vitally important, but there's a nagging voice asking if this is really worth it. Sometimes it turns out not to have been. More often I look back and think that part we made better could've used even more time investment. Personally, I enjoy maintenance work. It's an opportunity to refine and improve ideas I or others had previously. It's less uncertain - the big picture is there, it has history, we've seen how it's expanded and changed over time already, I don't have to try to predict the future as much as I make architectural decisions. Completing a significant refactoring effort is every bit as gratifying to me as launching something new. Staying in one place for a decade has given me opportunity to see through efforts that take years before all the pieces are in place.