Tell me about a time you convinced product or leadership to invest in paying down technical debt. How did you make the case in business terms?

Imagine you have a messy room that makes it hard to find things and slows you down every morning. You need to convince your parents to let you spend a weekend cleaning it instead of playing video games. You show them how much time you waste each day searching for stuff, and how a clean room will save you 10 minutes daily—so over a month, you'll actually gain back hours. That's what convincing leadership to pay down tech debt is like: translating technical mess into time and money saved.