> tech managers look at tech debt as a thing to be maintained at a certain level

  > allowing us to achieve perfection

Look, I'll defend high quality code all day long. Good code allows you to move fast just like taking 30s to tie your shoe laces allows you to run faster.

But we can't write high quality if we pretend that perfection exists. Globally optional solutions are the exception, not the norm. There's almost always tradeoffs we need to make. The high quality code, the high quality engineering, is understating, tracking, triaging, and minimizing those tradeoffs. It is writing code that allows you to change those decisions as quick and effectively as possible. But perfection doesn't exist. It's a good thing to chase, like Utopia, but ultimately unobtainable. A good engineer knows how to triage.

Advocating for perfect code will be a losing battle. But we should not, even for a second, let that be interpreted as meaning quality doesn't matter. I'm still frustrated with people who say "don't let perfection be the enemy of good enough" as most of the people that say that believe "good enough" is "it looks like it is working" and call a "demo" a MVP

Your tech manager is likely very aware of the imperfections and is making prioritizations and compromises to keep you employed.

Perfection is the enemy of progress. There will always be a balancing act.

That's exactly what managers should be doing.

> instead of allowing us to achieve perfection

Huh?