Most engineering teams don't set out to manage infrastructure. They start with a product idea, a customer need, or a business problem. Infrastructure enters the picture as a means to an end. Servers need to be provisioned. Databases need to be configured. Networks need to be secured. At first, this work feels necessary and even empowering. It gives teams control. But over time, that control turns into a burden. What begins as a few Terraform scripts or cloud console clicks evolves into a growing layer of responsibility. Teams find themselves maintaining deployment pipelines, debugging networking issues, rotating credentials, patching systems, and responding to incidents unrelated to their product logic. This is the hidden tax of infrastructure. It's not a line item in your budget, but it is paid every day in engineering time, cognitive load, and lost focus.…