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One of my four jobs was on such a team. Unfortunately, they canned it (after I left) as they couldn't figure out what it did.

If my team of 8 devs had just one dedicated to improving infrastructure and processes, we could probably increase our overall output by 30% in a year.

Ha, I'm happy this exists. I created this department at the company I founded at and directed it for some time. We call it the internal tools department. It still exists today and is run by a former employee of the department. It's very valuable for us.

This is great. How do they deal with the on-going maintenance of the tools they build? Do they move to the main product team or does the internal systems team continue to maintain them?