Thank you for your answer, it was eye-opening. The story is that they opened that department a year ago and needed buy-in quickly so needed to jump-start it by hiring consultants. Whether hiring consultants was a good idea or not, I understand how things ended up where there are. A mix of inexperience and huge pressure to deliver.

Now that we have buy in the pressure isn't so bad. I have a startup background and this is one of the reasons why I was hired. I am not too worried about having to convince my manager, she's great and is the one who started criticizing the legacy (she arrived a few months ago) and asked me to dive in and give my opinion.

She agreed to let me work 30% of my time on this, and the rest on delivering direct value to the clients. The related tickets will be part of the sprint. I will do as you say now, and create items that address the concerns.