Technical debt is what happens when developers take shortcuts to deliver software faster, knowing they’ll need to fix things later. It’s like cutting corners when building a house—maybe you skip some insulation to move in sooner, but down the line, you’ll have to deal with cold rooms and high heating bills. In coding, these shortcuts can mean skipping tests, using quick but clunky solutions, or ignoring best practices to meet a deadline.
Taking on technical debt isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes, it’s a smart trade-off to ship a product quickly and get real user feedback. But if it keeps piling up without being addressed, it slows everything down—making bug fixes harder, new features riskier, and development more expensive. In this guide, we’ll break down why technical debt happens, when it’s okay, and how to keep it from becoming a serious problem.
Understanding technical debt: A messy closet problem
Technical debt might sound complicated, but it’s actually pretty simple. Imagine you’re cleaning your room. You’re in a rush, so instead of putting things where they belong, you shove everything into a closet and think, “I’ll sort it out later.”
For a while, this works. Your room looks clean, and no one knows about the chaos behind that closet door. But as time goes on, you keep stuffing more things inside. Eventually, the door won’t close, and finding anything takes forever. Now, cleaning up will take way more time and effort than if you had just stayed organized from the start.
That’s exactly how technical debt works.
In software development, teams often take shortcuts to meet deadlines. Maybe they skip writing tests, use quick workarounds, or avoid refactoring messy code. At first, everything seems fine because the software works. But as the project grows, those shortcuts pile up, making future changes harder and development slower.
When technical debt is actually useful
Sometimes, shoving things into the closet is the right choice. If guests are arriving in five minutes, you don’t have time to neatly organize everything—you just need the place to look presentable.
In development, this is like launching an MVP or pushing a must-have feature under a tight deadline. Speed matters more than perfection. The key is making sure you come back and clean up before the mess becomes unmanageable. If you ignore it for too long, the debt keeps growing until even small updates become painful.
Types of technical debt
Not all tech debt is the same—just like not all yogurts are packed with probiotics. Some of it is intentional, some happens by accident, and some builds up just because technology moves fast.
Planned (intentional) tech debt
This happens when teams knowingly take shortcuts to deliver a feature faster, planning to fix things later. It’s like borrowing money (financial debt)—you get what you need now but have to “pay it back” with extra work in the future.
Accidental (unintentional) tech debt
Sometimes, teams don’t realize they’re creating code debt. Maybe they made a design decision without fully understanding the long-term impact, or they didn’t have enough experience to see a better solution at the time.
Outdated tech debt
Even well-written code can become tech debt over time. A system that worked perfectly five years ago might now be slow, outdated, or difficult to integrate with modern tools. The longer teams wait to update the code base, the harder it gets.
No matter the type, tech debt isn’t just about messy code—it’s about the cost of fixing it later. The goal isn’t to eliminate debt completely, but to manage it before it becomes a roadblock.
Why technical debt happens?
Technical debt isn’t always a disaster. Sometimes, teams take it on purpose—a strategic shortcut to meet deadlines or test an idea quickly. Other times, it sneaks in like unwashed coffee mugs on your desk—you don’t notice at first, but one day you look around and realize it’s everywhere. Whether intentional or accidental, here’s how tech debt piles up.
Deadlines and pressure to ship fast
Speed wins in business. Startups need to launch before their funding runs out, big companies want to beat competitors and expand globally, therefore product managers always ask, “Can we ship this sooner?”.
Under pressure, developers cut corners—skipping tests, rushing architecture decisions, or writing “temporary” code that somehow sticks around forever. These shortcuts save time now, but fixing them later is like untangling last year’s Christmas lights. The longer you wait, the messier it gets.
Changing requirements
Software is never really “done.” Users request changes, business goals and tasks shift, and features that made sense six months ago suddenly feel outdated.
Instead of refactoring properly, teams often stack new logic on top of old code like a game of Jenga: The Technical Debt Edition. Eventually, the whole thing becomes fragile, and every small change feels risky.
Lack of planning (or just guessing wrong)
Not all tech debt comes from time pressure. Sometimes, teams just bet on the wrong horse—choosing a framework that doesn’t scale, designing a database structure that turns out to be a bottleneck, or underestimating how complex a feature will get.
At the time, these decisions seemed fine. But as the project evolves, those early choices start feeling like buying a cheap chair that falls apart after a year—now you have to either fix it constantly or replace it entirely.
Outdated technology
Tech moves fast, and yesterday’s cutting-edge tools can quickly become today’s legacy headaches. Libraries stop receiving updates, frameworks fall out of favor, and suddenly your system is held together with deprecated functions and hope.
The longer teams wait to upgrade, the harder it gets. Eventually, tech debt turns into tech regret—when small updates require massive rewrites, and no one on the team fully understands the old system anymore.
How to manage technical debt?
Technical debt is a fact of life in software engineering, but it doesn’t have to become a nightmare. The goal isn’t to eliminate it completely—that’s like saying you’ll never take a shortcut again. The real challenge is keeping it under control so it doesn’t slow development to a crawl. Here’s how teams can handle it without grinding progress to a halt.
Spot tech debt before it becomes a crisis
Tech debt isn’t always obvious—until it suddenly kicks down the door like an uninvited guest. Slow release cycles, unexpected bugs, bad code, and frustrated developers spending more time patching old code than building new features are all signs that debt is piling up.
Regular code reviews, retrospectives, and tracking pain points help catch issues early before they snowball into full-blown disasters. If developers keep complaining about the same part of the codebase, chances are that’s where the debt is lurking.
Prioritize what actually needs fixing
Not all tech debt needs to be paid off right away. Some shortcuts are harmless for months (or even years), while others quickly turn into blockers.
Fixing everything at once isn’t realistic, so teams should focus on the debt that actively slows them down. If a tangled module causes constant bugs or makes adding new features painful, it’s a priority. But if it’s just messy code that nobody touches, it can wait.
Refactor when you can, rewrite when you must
Cleaning up tech debt doesn’t always mean throwing everything out and starting from scratch. In most cases, small, gradual improvements (refactoring) can make the codebase easier to work with without a huge time investment.
But sometimes, a system is so outdated or poorly designed that rewriting legacy code from the ground up is the only way forward. The trick is knowing when the pain of constant fixes outweighs the cost of a full rebuild.
Don’t let debt pile up in the first place
Some design debt is strategic, but a lot of it happens because of rushed decisions, poor planning, or “we’ll fix it later” thinking. Writing maintainable code, keeping documentation up to date, and allocating time for regular cleanup can prevent small issues from turning into massive problems.
Think of it like doing the dishes—it’s much easier to wash a few plates now than to deal with a sink full of crusty leftovers next week.
Real-world examples of technical debt
Every dev team has run into technical debt at some point. It usually starts as a harmless shortcut—something done to save time or meet a deadline. But as the project grows, that small decision can turn into a major headache. Here are a few ways tech debt plays out in real life.
Scaling issues caused by rushed architecture
A startup launches its MVP as fast as possible. To keep things simple, they choose a basic database structure that works well for their first few hundred users. Everything runs smoothly—until their user base explodes.
Suddenly, queries slow down, database migrations take forever, and adding new features requires painful workarounds. The quick-and-dirty setup that helped them launch is now holding them back. Fixing it means either refactoring everything (which will take weeks) or dealing with performance issues that frustrate users. Either way, they’re paying for the shortcuts they took early on.
Outdated translation management slows down global expansion
A SaaS company decides to expand into new markets, but there’s one problem: their internationalization (i18n) system is a mess. When they first started, translations were hardcoded into the app because it was faster. Now, every time they add a new language, developers have to manually update files and double-check that nothing breaks.
This slows down every market launch. A process that should take days stretches into weeks, and translation errors start creeping into the UI. If they had set up a proper translation management system (TMS) from the start, handling multiple languages would be seamless. Instead, they’re stuck choosing between limiting their expansion or halting feature development to clean up their i18n setup.
A legacy framework blocking new features
A large company built its product on a once-popular JavaScript framework. At the time, it was the best choice. But over the years, the framework stopped receiving updates, and now every new feature feels like hacking an ancient relic.
Developers waste hours making modern libraries work with outdated code. Security patches become a headache. New hires struggle to navigate the legacy system, and fixing one bug often creates three new ones. The business team demands faster releases, but the devs know that until they migrate to a modern stack, every change will be painful.
How to talk about technical debt with non-devs
Engineering team knows that technical debt can grind projects to a halt, but explaining that to managers, product owners, or executives isn’t always easy. If you just say, “We need time to fix our tech debt,” expect some resistance—because from a business perspective, it sounds like you’re asking for time to work on something invisible instead of delivering new features.
To get buy-in, you need to frame the conversation in a way that makes sense to non-technical stakeholders.
Talk about impact, not just code
Non-devs don’t care about clean code or missing tests. They care about speed, cost, and delivering value to customers. Instead of saying:
“This module is a disaster. We need to refactor it.”
Try:
“Right now, adding new features takes twice as long because of how this module is structured. If we clean it up, we can develop faster and reduce bugs.”
Now it’s about efficiency and results, not just “fixing messy code.”
Use analogies people understand
Technical debt is an abstract concept for people who don’t work with code. A metaphor might help. Here are some analogies to bridge that gap:
- Messy workspace – “Imagine a kitchen where every drawer is stuffed with random utensils. You can still cook, but it takes forever to find the right tool. Cleaning up makes everything faster.”
- Debt with interest – “We took a shortcut to ship faster, like taking a loan. Now we’re paying ‘interest’ in the form of slower development and more bugs.”
- Leaky pipes – “We can keep patching this old system, but at some point, we need to replace the pipes instead of fixing leaks every week.”
Show the cost of doing nothing
Some non-devs see tech debt as a theoretical problem that can always be fixed later. If it’s causing real issues, make that clear:
- “Right now, we’re spending 30% of development time fixing bugs from this issue. That’s time we could spend on new features.”
- “Each release is getting riskier because of how this system is built. If we don’t fix it, a small change could cause a major outage.”
- “Upgrading now will take two weeks. If we wait another year, it could take two months.”
Numbers help. If you can show how tech debt is slowing development or increasing risks, it’s easier to justify fixing it.
Take a messy i18n setup as another example. If all UI text was hardcoded instead of properly structured, adding new languages becomes a nightmare. Instead of plugging in translations easily, devs have to hunt down text in the codebase and manually update it, increasing errors and delays.
Had the team done it right from the start, new languages would be a quick addition instead of a painful rebuild. Now, they either keep struggling with manual fixes or face a major refactor. The longer they wait, the worse it gets.
Tech debt doesn’t just sit there—it grows more expensive the longer you ignore it.
Balance fixing tech debt with building features
No business wants to hear, “We need six months to clean up our codebase.” Instead, suggest an approach that balances maintenance with new development:
- Dedicate 20% of development time to refactoring – The Pareto principle (80/20 rule) applies to tech debt too as around 20% of the worst code usually causes 80% of the headaches. Regularly cleaning up the most problematic areas can improve development speed without needing a full rewrite.
- Fix tech debt as part of feature development instead of postponing it.
- Schedule small, regular cleanups instead of waiting for a major crisis.
By framing tech debt as an investment in faster, smoother development, you’ll have a much easier time getting leadership on board.
Conclusion
Technical debt is part of every software project. It’s not just about messy code—it’s the cost of moving fast and making trade-offs to meet deadlines, test ideas, or handle changing requirements.
When managed well, tech debt isn’t a problem. But when ignored, it slows everything down, increases costs, and makes even small changes risky. The key is to keep it under control—identify debt early, fix what actually slows development, and balance maintenance with new features.
And when talking about it with non-devs, focus on what matters to them: speed, cost, better user experience, and delivering value.
Software development is all about trade-offs. Sometimes, taking on technical debt is the right choice. The challenge is making sure it doesn’t spiral out of control. Keep it in check, and you’ll spend less time fighting the past—and more time building the future.
