Technical Debt
Code Quality
Amartya Jha
• 18 February 2025
You know that friend who always borrows money but never pays it back? They swear they’ll repay you “next week,” but next week turns into next year, and suddenly you’re funding their entire life.
Technical debt works the same way.
Teams take shortcuts to hit deadlines, promising to “fix it later.” But “later” never comes. The debt piles up. Bugs multiply. New features take twice as long. Developers quit. And one day, your app collapses under its own weight.
Here’s the thing:
50% of developers say technical debt brings team morale down.
Startups fail not because of bad ideas but because they drown in unmanaged debt.
Enterprises waste millions patching systems they should’ve rebuilt a decade ago.
This guide isn’t about “avoiding debt”—that’s impossible. It’s about making debt work for you, not against you.
Let’s start.
What Is Technical Debt?
The “Credit Card” Metaphor that changed coding forever. In 1992, Ward Cunningham (a coding pioneer) sat in a meeting with financial folks. They kept talking about “debt,” and he had a moment:
“Writing code is like borrowing money. If you’re intentional, debt lets you move fast. But if you ignore it, the interest—endless bugs, slow progress—will ruin you.”
That’s why he called it technical debt. Not “bad code.” Not “lazy devs.” Just a trade-off.
Debt vs. Disaster: Uncle Bob’s Reality Check
Uncle Bob Martin says most teams confuse debt with disaster:
✅ Debt = Planned.
“We’ll skip automated tests for this prototype, but add them in Sprint 3.”
❌ Disaster = “We’ll fix it someday.”
“Who needs documentation? Our code is obvious.” (Spoiler: It’s not.)
Debt becomes toxic when you pretend it doesn’t exist.
The “Interest” No One Talks About
Imagine you build a feature in 2 days instead of 5 by cutting corners. Short-term win! But:
3 months later, that code breaks every time you update the app.
New hires spend weeks analyzing your “clever” shortcuts.
Your team spends 40% of their time fixing old bugs instead of building new things.
That’s the “interest”: wasted time, lost momentum, and a team that’s exhausted instead of excited.
The 13 Types of Technical Debt (Yes, 13!)
Debt isn’t just messy code. It’s everywhere. Let’s break it down:
The Big 3 Everyone Knows (But Ignores):
Code Debt:
“Let’s copy-paste this function 20 times. What could go wrong?”
Symptoms: Bugs that “come back from the dead,” slow performance.Testing Debt:
“We’ll test it manually… forever.”
Symptoms: Fear of updates, production crashes at 2 AM.Documentation Debt:
“This code is self-explanatory!” (It’s not.)
Symptoms: New hires ask the same questions for 6 months.
The 10 Sneaky Ones You’re Overlooking:
Architecture Debt
What it is: The skeleton of your system is shaky. Think: Building a skyscraper on a foundation meant for a shed.
Example: Using a monolithic architecture for a app that needs to scale to millions of users.
Consequence: Every new feature feels like doing surgery on a moving car.
2. Build Debt
What it is: Your build process is slow.
Example: No automated pipelines. Deployments take 3 hours and 17 coffees.
Consequence: Developers waste days babysitting builds instead of coding.
3. Defect Debt
What it is: Known bugs you’ve swept under the rug.
Example: “The login screen fails 10% of the time… but we’ll fix it after launch.”
Consequence: Users rage-tweet, and your app store rating tanks.
4. Design Debt
What it is: UI/UX choices that made sense in 2010 but now feel like a bad tattoo.
Example: A checkout flow with 12 steps because “that’s how we’ve always done it.”
Consequence: Cart abandonment rates hit 90%.
5. Infrastructure Debt
What it is: Servers older than your Netflix queue, held together by duct tape.
Example: Still using physical servers instead of cloud scaling.
Consequence: Your site crashes every Black Friday.
6. People Debt
What it is: Only one person knows how the entire system works (and they’re quitting).
Example: No cross-training. “Ask Bob” is the answer to every question.
Consequence: Rahul takes a vacation, and the company grinds to a halt.
7. Process Debt
What it is: Red tape that turns simple tasks into Odysseys.
Example: Needing 8 approvals to update a button color.
Consequence: Your “agile” team moves at waterfall speed.
8. Requirement Debt
What it is: Building features nobody asked for (or needs).
Example: Adding a blockchain integration… because “innovation.”
Consequence: Wasted months and a product users hate.
9. Service Debt
What it is: APIs and microservices that are unreliable or poorly integrated.
Example: A payment service that times out 30% of requests.
Consequence: Lost sales and angry customers.
10. Test Automation Debt
What it is: Manual testing that eats up your team’s soul.
Example: QA spends 2 weeks clicking buttons before every release.
Consequence: Releases delayed.
Now, if tech debt isn't always bad, when does it actually help?
Why Technical Debt Isn’t Always Evil
Wait, so technical debt can actually be good? Yep, sometimes it’s the smartest move.
Many unicorn startups (think Airbnb, Uber) intentionally took on tech debt to move fast. Had they spent years writing perfect code, they would have never launched in time.
When Debt Pays Off:
Speed > Perfection: Startups like Instagram and Airbnb shipped buggy MVPs fast, grabbed market share, and fixed issues later.
Buying Time: Debt lets you validate ideas before overengineering. (No one wants a BMW M8 Competition for a road that doesn’t exist.)
But here is the thing — Debt is like adrenaline. It keeps you alive in a crisis—but you can’t run on it forever.
The Agile Balance: Managing Debt in Sprints
Smart teams dedicate 20% of every sprint to tech debt clean-up.
Code reviews catch debt before it accumulates.
Feature planning includes refactoring time (not just new features).
Proven Strategies to Manage Technical Debt
Tech debt is unavoidable, but you can keep it under control. Here’s how the best teams do it:
The Debt Audit: Know What You Owe
Before you fix debt, you need to find it.
Use automated code analysis tools (e.g., CodeAnt.ai, SonarQube).
Maintain a tech debt backlog—track what needs fixing.
Prioritize using a cost vs. impact matrix (e.g., “What slows us down the most?”).
Refactoring Without Regret
Fixing everything at once isn’t practical. Instead:
Follow the Boy Scout Rule: Always leave the codebase cleaner than you found it.
Allocate 20% of sprint time to tech debt reduction.
Refactor small chunks—not entire systems at once.
Prevention is Better Than Cure
Encourage pair programming and code reviews.
Set up automated linting and testing.
Write tests with features, not after.
The Future of Debt Management: AI, Culture, and KPIs
Tech debt isn’t going away. But how we deal with it is evolving fast. The smartest teams don’t just track tech debt—they use AI, automation, and proactive strategies to stop it from piling up in the first place.
AI & Automation: Predicting Debt Before It Happens
Modern AI tools can now analyze code patterns and flag risky areas before they become real problems. Instead of waiting until developers struggle, these tools detect:
Unmaintainable code (overly complex logic, duplication)
Potential security risks (vulnerabilities in dependencies)
Files accumulating changes (a sign of unstable architecture)
Some AI tools suggestions:
Plug: We are bullish more on CodeAnt 😉
Shift-Left or Get Left Behind
The “shift-left” movement means catching debt early:
Design Phase: “Will this architecture haunt us in 2 years?”
Code Reviews: “Why does this function look like spaghetti?”
Onboarding: Teach new hires to avoid debt traps.
Debt as a KPI (Yes, Really)
Think of tracking it like:
Debt-to-Value Ratio: “Did this shortcut lead to revenue?”
Interest Rate: “How many hours are we wasting per week?”
Repayment Rate: “Are we fixing debt faster than adding it?”
Pro Tip: Add these metrics to exec dashboards. CEOs love numbers that scream “This is costing us $$$.”
What Next?
Technical debt is something you can’t avoid—but it’s not the enemy. It’s a trade-off. A tool. The key is knowing when to take it on and when to pay it off. Remember progress > perfection.
Let CodeAnt AI automatically detect and fix code quality issues, so you can focus on building awesome features. Try it free for 7 days and experience smoother, smarter development.
Happy reading.
