Turn Invisible Debt Into Visible ROI
Technical debt is the hidden cost killing your velocity and innovation. Every shortcut, outdated dependency, and "we'll fix it later" compounds into a productivity tax that slows every feature, increases every bug, and frustrates every developer.
What Is Technical Debt?
Technical debt is code shortcuts that speed up delivery today but create compounding costs tomorrow. It's the difference between "doing it right" and "doing it fast" - and it accumulates interest like financial debt.
Every copy-pasted function, every skipped test, every "TODO" comment, and every outdated library adds to your debt balance. Over time, this invisible burden becomes the primary reason your team can't ship features as fast as they used to.
Choose Your Path
Whether you write code, lead teams, or set strategy - tech debt affects you differently. Start with the guide built for your role.
Developer
Recognize debt, prevent it daily, and lead refactoring efforts from the trenches.
Tech Lead
Prioritize debt, plan sprints, build technical roadmaps that balance delivery and quality.
Manager
Track metrics, protect team health, and make the business case for debt reduction.
Executive
Understand strategic risk, communicate to the board, and fund debt reduction initiatives.
AI & Agentic Coding: The New Frontier of Tech Debt
Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Devin - AI coding assistants are generating code 10x faster. But without guardrails, they're also generating debt 10x faster. AI slop, architecture drift, hallucinated dependencies, and test gaps are the new categories of tech debt that no one is talking about.
Where Developer Time Actually Goes
Industry research shows developers spend only a third of their time building new features. The rest goes to maintenance, tech debt, and planning.
33% New Features
The only slice that delivers direct business value to customers.
33% Maintenance
Keeping existing systems running - bug fixes, patches, updates.
23% Tech Debt
Working around or paying down accumulated shortcuts and poor code.
11% Planning
Architecture decisions, sprint planning, and technical discussions.
Source: Industry research aggregated from Stack Overflow, Stripe, and DORA reports (2024-2026)
When Does Tech Debt Become a Problem?
Velocity Collapse
Simple features that should take hours now take days. Your sprint velocity has been declining for months.
Bug Whack-a-Mole
Every bug fix introduces two new bugs. Your QA team can't keep up with regression testing.
Onboarding Crisis
New developers take 6+ months to become productive. Senior devs spend all their time explaining "why it works that way."
Talent Exodus
Your best engineers are leaving. Exit interviews mention "codebase quality" and "technical frustration."
If you recognize 2 or more of these warning signs, you have a tech debt problem.
The good news? Tech debt is manageable - if you know why it matters and how to prioritize it.
Understand Why Tech Debt Reduction MattersCreated by Developers, for Developers
This site was built by RJ Lindelof, who has spent 34 years writing code and 21 years in global executive leadership.
From the trenches to the boardroom - I've written terrible code under pressure, inherited nightmarish legacy systems, and convinced countless executives to invest in tech debt reduction.
Learn more about the experience behind this siteQuestions? Suggestions?
Have a tech debt war story? Want to share a strategy that worked for your team? Found something that could be better on this site?
Get in TouchThe Tech Debt Movement
Developers worldwide are fighting back against technical debt. Here's what's happening right now:
* All statistics are simulated and generated for illustrative purposes