When most people hear “technical debt,” they think code.
Messy code. Outdated frameworks. Fragile integrations.
The stuff developers complain about, and leaders nod at until something breaks.
But here’s the truth:
Tech debt doesn’t just live in the codebase. It lives in your decisions, your culture, and your priorities.
It’s not just a developer’s problem. It’s a leadership one.
Because the deeper cost of tech debt isn’t bugs. It’s momentum lost, opportunity delayed, and trust eroded across the business.
What is tech debt, really?
Technical debt is any shortcut that prioritizes speed over sustainability.
Sometimes it’s intentional, a quick win to meet a deadline.
Sometimes it’s unintentional, caused by lack of context, rushed decision-making, or evolving requirements.
But it’s not just about how something was built. It’s also about:
- What wasn’t documented
- What was never integrated
- What no one owns anymore
- What no one wants to touch
And while developers may be the first to feel the friction, the entire organization pays the price.
How tech debt shows up beyond code
- Application sprawl
You have six tools doing the same thing, each owned by a different department. No clear rationale. No sunset plan. Just confusion and cost. - Process workarounds
New systems were launched but no one rethought the underlying processes. So people use workarounds, manual updates, or legacy platforms just to “make it work.” - Data inconsistency
Your analytics dashboards don’t match your finance numbers. Sales metrics live in three systems. Leadership spends half their time reconciling the truth. - Skills mismatch
You’ve adopted tools the team wasn’t trained for. Now you’re dependent on outside consultants, or worse, completely stuck.
All of these are forms of tech debt. And none of them get solved in GitHub.
Why this is a leadership problem
Because many of these decisions weren’t made in the engineering team.
They were made (or avoided) at the leadership level:
- Prioritizing speed to market over stability
- Approving short-term fixes instead of long-term investment
- Kicking modernization down the road
- Undervaluing documentation, architecture, or user experience
The consequences of those decisions now live in your roadmap, your budgets, and your team morale.
Tech debt is a reflection of what leadership has chosen to optimize for.
How smart leaders take responsibility for tech debt
They make it visible
They ask for tech debt to be surfaced, tracked, and sized, not hidden or worked around. They treat it as a real part of the backlog, not just background noise.
They fund it intentionally
They create space in the portfolio to pay down debt, not just push new features. They budget for refactoring, not just expansion.
They change the narrative
They stop treating tech debt as technical failure. Instead, they treat it like financial debt, manageable if tracked, dangerous if ignored.
They model long-term thinking
They don’t chase every new tool or trend. They ask:
“What’s the cost of not addressing this now?”
“What will this decision look like in two years?”
They empower teams to say no
They give developers and architects the voice to flag trade-offs before they become liabilities. And they listen.
Your next roadmap isn’t just about what you build.
It’s about what you unblock.
So if you’re leading technology, product, or transformation…
Don’t ask: “Do we have tech debt?”
Ask:
- “Where is it slowing us down?”
- “Where is it confusing the business?”
- “Where are we pretending it’s not our problem?”
Because if you lead it, it is your problem.
And solving it? That’s where leadership begins.