User updates their profile. Refreshes the page — old data shows. They update again. Still old data. They're furious. Your system is eventually consistent — but nobody told the user (or the developer who designed the UI). Here's how to manage consistency expectations in distributed systems.
"We need to pay down tech debt" means nothing to a product manager or CFO. But "every new feature takes 3x longer than it should because of architectural decisions made 2 years ago, and here's the $200k annual cost" is a budget conversation they understand.