I understand where you are coming from, but I disagree with this. It is the engineering team that says whether or not something is "done", and if there is tech

I understand where you are coming from, but I disagree with this. It is the engineering team that says whether or not something is "done", and if there is tech debt that must be addressed before a feature can be implemented, then it needs to be done as part of that feature. In majority of the cases I have encountered the tech debt is optional to address, the risks around them have varying implications depending on the case and there is no blanket decision to cover them. In most of these cases, it is simply a matter of explaining the business people the risks of taking shortcuts. In the end not every tech debt needs to be paid immediately, and not every tech debt is bad. If the tech debt allows you to make money today instead of 2 months from now, you might very well take the debt and think about it later if what you need is money. I'd recommend talking to business people and making sure they understand the risks of these decisions, then they will be more in favor of addressing them, in some cases even more than you would do yourself.