Modern Software Engineering on YouTube · Open on YouTube
Technical leadership: reviews, mentoring, incidents and influence · Expert · Lesson 89 of 98 · 18 min video, then about 5 hours of practice
Managing technical debt deliberately
After this you can classify technical debt, make the case for paying it down in terms of its cost to the business, and fold small improvements into everyday work.
Why it matters
Technical debt is not just bad code; it is any shortcut whose interest you keep paying. Some debt is deliberate and sensible. The leadership skill is making debt visible, quantifying its cost (slower delivery, incidents, onboarding time), and paying it down incrementally rather than begging for a rewrite. Kent Beck's 'tidy first' idea is useful here: small structural improvements made just before a behaviour change, where they pay off immediately. Trap: asking for a quarter to 'fix tech debt'. Tie each piece to a cost the business already feels.
How to use this resource
Types of technical debt and practical ways to manage each.