Folks are focusing on "five months of runway" or other minor details and missing the big picture here. Big companies typically have fewer constraints on time,

Folks are focusing on "five months of runway" or other minor details and missing the big picture here. Big companies typically have fewer constraints on time, money, and developers. They can have very mature development processes because of that. Small companies typically have tighter constraints. It's not as if this hypothetical manager doesn't want better process, but if the things to spend time on are "better deployment methods" or "ship this feature in time to land a critical contract," there's no choice there. OP has, potentially, a unique position here. If they can find a way to use their experience to help implement small process changes without grinding development to a halt, they can seriously improve their team and maybe emerge as a leader as well. This is different from "we need to stop and do all-team code reviews before every PR merge!" The time may not be there, and the management buy-in sure isn't. But encouraging teammates to add new tests with each new feature, and helping folks who may not know how to do that, can have a huge impact. Taking an hour or so Friday afternoon to gather the team and casually review merged PRs or do a sprint post meeting over drinks can be a good unwinding activity. OP's got an opportunity here.