Technical Debt — The Hidden Mortgage of Business

🏚️ Technical Debt — The Hidden Mortgage of Business

Imagine your startup is a house. Initially, it's small: one room, minimal comforts, but built fast. You're excited about the speed—after all, launching and earning revenue is the priority.

But then new requirements emerge: a second floor, a leaky roof, overloaded wiring. The problem? The foundation was designed for a lightweight structure, and now every new addition threatens stability.

Congratulations! You've taken out a mortgage at a 50% interest rate—without signing any papers. That’s technical debt in action.

📉 How Businesses Take on a Technical Mortgage

When startups launch, no one wants to spend time on the “perfect architecture.” Everyone wants an MVP as soon as possible. Here are a few common "loan agreements" companies unknowingly sign:

• "Borrowing from future-us" – "We'll refactor it later, let's just make it work now."
• "Hacks are fine" – "Let’s add one more if statement, no big deal."
• "No time for tests" – "We need to ship this feature by Friday, we’ll write tests later (spoiler: never)."
• "Refactoring? Not now" – "If it works, don’t touch it. Even if every bug fix takes weeks."

💥 The Interest Rate on Technical Debt

Like financial debt, technical debt accrues interest. The longer you avoid dealing with it, the harder it becomes to manage.

• At the start – Everything looks great: fast releases, quick experiments.
• One year in – Half the team is fixing bugs instead of shipping new features.
• Two years in – Every new task feels like archaeological research: “Who wrote this and why?”
• Later – The business slows down because technical debt suffocates it—just like an unpaid mortgage.

🚀 How to Refinance Technical Debt

Okay, so we know technical debt is a problem. How do we pay it off?

• Track tech debt in the backlog – Treat it as a business problem, not just an engineering issue.
• Budget time for refactoring – Improve code incrementally before it becomes unmanageable.
• Testing is not a luxury – Automated tests make releases safer and faster.
• Invest in architecture – Sometimes, a month of restructuring saves years of pain.
• Hire an architect – Developers write good code, but an architect ensures long-term sustainability.

👷 Why an Architect is the "Insurance Agent" for Tech Debt

Business leaders must understand: an architect is not a luxury, but an insurance policy. Without one, systems grow chaotically and eventually become impossible to scale.

What does an architect do?

• Designs a solid foundation for future growth.
• Prevents chaos by enforcing structure and consistency.
• Ensures that new code doesn't worsen the architecture.
• Decides when to take on "loans" and when it's too risky.

⚠️ When Should You Panic?

If your company:

• Releases updates slower and slower.
• Loses money due to technical issues.
• Onboards new developers who struggle to understand the codebase.
• Has no architect, and decisions are made randomly.

Then your mortgage is overdue, and it's time for serious action.

🏁 Conclusion

Technical debt isn’t just an engineering issue—it’s a strategic business decision. You can ignore it for a while, but eventually, the interest payments become unbearable.

The question isn’t whether you have tech debt (everyone does), but whether you’re managing it wisely.

How does your company handle technical debt? Or is your mortgage already unmanageable?