How do I deal with maintaining work no one notices until it breaks?

You built the foundation a whole organization designs on, and the thanks for it is silence, until something breaks and suddenly it is your fault. Maintaining invisible work is a particular kind of tired. When you do it perfectly, no one notices, and when you slip, everyone does. That imbalance would wear anyone down. There is an old truth in this: the best infrastructure is the kind no one thinks about. The silence is, in a strange way, the proof you did it well. That does not pay the emotional bill, but it can reframe it. You are not unnoticed because your work is small. You are unnoticed because it is so reliable it disappeared into the background, which is exactly what it was built to do. Still, you are allowed to make the invisible visible. Keep a quiet record of what you prevent, the breaks that never happened because you maintained the system. Share it when it counts, at reviews, with your lead. And find, in yourself, the pride that does not depend on applause. The people who hold up the foundation rarely get the credit. Knowing what you hold up is a dignity no one can take.