[lolinder]

> Technical debt can be significant and take months to address on a large codebase.

I think the premise is that if you've got months of technical debt built up, you've already screwed up. If you (and everyone else on your team) refuse to ever take shortcuts, you'll end up debt free.

If you're already in a situation where you have mounds of debt, yes, you can't just increase your estimate for current tasks.

[selfhoster11]

"If only everyone" is a version of the Prisoner's Dilemma. I don't think we've got that one figured out yet.

Besides, if your working style overly focuses on proper engineering while other things are on fire, the company could die.