That's a really interesting observation. Having been in enterprise for a long time I think there are 3 things that I've seen make a big improvement on the healt

That's a really interesting observation. Having been in enterprise for a long time I think there are 3 things that I've seen make a big improvement on the health of a system after a decade or more. 1. Longevity of Engineers: Attrition is a killer from a knowledge perspective. Teams that keep their engineers have healthier systems 2. Avoid Over Abstraction: Simple understandable code is easier to maintain. Too many mid level engineers go overboard with abstraction and bad abstraction is worse than no abstraction. 3. Choose tech that is likely to be well maintained decades later. It's better to pick tech that will be well maintained than to pick tech that is better in some way but more obscure and more likely to poorly maintained in decades.