"this needs to be improved long term" isn't really something you can put on a quarterly roadmap though. I think a good startup engineer knows how to keep track

"this needs to be improved long term" isn't really something you can put on a quarterly roadmap though. I think a good startup engineer knows how to keep track of these things themselves, and knows when and how hard to push on project leaders to get something done about it. Imo, most of the "UGH why doesn't the business side care about this!?" is really a lot of engineers failing to properly communicate in business-speak with the rest of the company. If we can barely explain the bounds of what "technical debt" means and how we handle it to ourselves within our domain in software, how can we possibly expect people involved with business requirements and money numbers to ever meaningfully understand this concept?