The future cost of rework caused by choosing a quick or easy software solution now instead of a better long-term approach.
The term was coined by programmer Ward Cunningham, who compared shortcuts in code to financial debt. Taking on some debt can be sensible, for example to ship a prototype quickly, but like a loan it accrues interest: each later change becomes slower and riskier until the debt is paid down through refactoring.
Technical debt shows up as duplicated code, missing tests, outdated dependencies, confusing architecture, poor documentation, and workarounds no one fully understands. Some debt is deliberate, while some accumulates unintentionally as requirements change. Teams manage it by tracking known debt, reserving time in each cycle for cleanup, writing automated tests, and making debt visible to business stakeholders so they understand why maintenance work matters.
An iterative approach to software development that delivers work in small increments and adapts to feedback instead of following a fixed upfront plan.
Code ReviewThe practice of having other developers examine code changes before they are merged, to catch bugs and keep quality consistent.
Monolithic ArchitectureA software design in which an application is built and deployed as a single unit, with all features sharing one codebase.
RefactoringRestructuring existing code to make it cleaner, simpler, or easier to maintain without changing what the software does.
Unit TestingTesting individual pieces of code, such as functions or classes, in isolation to confirm they behave as expected.
Vibe CodingBuilding software mainly by describing what you want to an AI tool in plain language and accepting the code it generates, with little manual coding.
Unit, integration and end-to-end tests catch different bugs at different costs. Here is what each one should cover, with examples, and how to balance them using the test pyramid.
The software development life cycle explained phase by phase, with the deliverables each stage produces and how modern agile and DevOps teams compress the cycle.
What static types actually catch, what TypeScript costs to set up, and a gradual migration plan that lets you switch 1 file at a time without stopping feature work.