Introduction to Technical Debt

Introduction

When it comes to building software, technical debt is a significant challenge that can impede progress, limits innovation, and potentially derails projects. According to research by GitHub's 2023 State of the Developer Nation report, engineering teams spend an average of 33% of their development time addressing technical debt, equivalent to $85 billion in global lost productivity annually.

Much like financial debt, technical debt refers to future costs. While sometimes necessary, technical debt can accumulate over time, creating a drag on development and leading to a host of problems down the line. McKinsey's latest analysis reveals that organizations typically spend 20-40% of their entire technology budget dealing with tech debt, making this single paradigm the greatest erosion to levels of competitiveness.

"What is technical debt?"

The term "technical debt" draws a powerful parallel between taking shortcuts in software development and incurring monetary debt. Like financial debt, technical debt can provide short-term benefits (speedy delivery, reduced initial cost) but incurs interest in the form of increased complexity, reduced maintainability, and slower future changes. According to Stripe's 2023 Developer Survey, this "interest" translates to approximately 13.5 hours per developer per week spent dealing with technical debt maintenance. At its most basic, technical debt can be defined as the cost of rework required to bring a software system to its ideal state, whether that's alignment with changing business requirements or technical objectives and KPIs.

However, a more nuanced definition acknowledges that not all technical debt is equal. Some might be strategic and intentional debt, while others might be accidental or negligent.

Research by Stack Overflow indicates that 78% of developers report working with codebases where more than 50% of the technical debt was unintentionally created.

Alternative terminology and usage

In tech circles, technical debt is sometimes referred to by other names, such as "code debt," or "design debt." These terms generally refer to specific aspects of technical debt but share the core concept of accumulating problems due to past decisions.

Forrester Research notes that 82% of CTOs use variations of these terms when discussing modernization priorities with their boards, highlighting how this terminology has become integral to technical strategy discussions.

The size of the problem

Professor Herb Krasner reported in 2022 the cost of technical debt to be $1.52T. Krasner now believes technical debt has climbed to $2T and continues to grow with manual remediation being outrun by the pace of change and new technologies.

Conclusion

Managing technical debt isn’t just about fixing code; it’s about building a smarter, more resilient foundation for your technology. A proactive approach - clear communication, strong documentation, consistent testing, and staying ahead of tech trends - transforms debt from a liability into an opportunity.

By identifying the types of technical debt and understanding their root causes, teams can strategically prioritize improvements, minimize risks, and avoid future bottlenecks. While some level of technical debt is inevitable in fast-paced development, addressing it systematically empowers your team to deliver better performance, cut costs, and stay agile for whatever the future brings.