I think it depends on the culture and the relationship between engineering and management a lot. Good places I’ve been at management will create the buffer and

I think it depends on the culture and the relationship between engineering and management a lot. Good places I’ve been at management will create the buffer and time for engineers to refactor (within reason) instead of just patching things. Great places I’ve seen management isn’t even the gate keeper. They help set the objective and engineers decide how to execute. If that’s a quick patch then fine, if it’s spending more time to completely rewrite something then fine too, as long as the relevant impact is communicated.