Technical debt is the gap between the code you wrote and the code you should have written. Every shortcut, every "we'll fix it later", every copy-pasted function — it all adds up.
The real cost
Studies show that technical debt accounts for 20-40% of development time in mature codebases. That means for every 5 features you ship, 1-2 are just paying interest on past decisions.
How to fix it
We use the "Boy Scout Rule" — always leave the code cleaner than you found it. Combined with dedicated refactor sprints every quarter, this keeps debt manageable without stopping feature work.
