Technical Debt
The future cost created when a team chooses a faster or simpler technical solution today.
Plain English
A shortcut now that creates extra work later.
In context
Technical debt is the accumulated maintenance or change cost caused by earlier technical tradeoffs.
Example
“We can ship this approach now but should track the technical debt.”
When you'll hear this
- planning
- code review
- architecture review
Common misunderstanding
Technical debt is not automatically bad; unmanaged debt is the problem.
Also known as
tech debt
Commonly used by
Related terms
Updated: 2026-08-25
