Yup, I’ve found that even when pretty much every engineer on the team knows that velocity is slow because necessary refactors have not been done, refactoring is

Yup, I’ve found that even when pretty much every engineer on the team knows that velocity is slow because necessary refactors have not been done, refactoring is often not considered real work and real progress. It’s the kind of thing you’re supposed to do in your spare time, off the roadmap. Also, people who find refactoring difficult or unpleasant will try to get you to see things from their point of view! Or they and their teammates have tried so many times to get the green light from leadership to pay down technical debt that they have given up. It’s underappreciated that developers have different strengths and interests and could be doing different kinds of work rather than being treated as interchangeable workers, even at a relatively small start-up, in my experience.