Technical debt is a budgeting decision, not a moral one.

The conversation about technical debt is usually framed as discipline versus shortcuts. That framing is not useful. The real question is what you are borrowing against and what the interest rate is.

We had a piece of code that handled billing. It was written in 3 days and worked. Every engineer who touched it described it as a nightmare. We rewrote it every 18 months.

The rewrite cost roughly 4 weeks of engineering time each cycle. In between, it caused about 2 incidents per year, each costing a day to fix. Total cost: roughly 6 weeks of engineering time per 18 months.

We finally rebuilt it properly. That took 8 weeks. In the 2 years since, it has caused zero incidents and needed no rewrites.

The math: we spent 8 weeks to stop spending 6 weeks every 18 months. Break-even was about 2 years. We had been avoiding the 8-week cost for 4 years.

The question is not whether to take on debt. It is whether you know the interest rate and the repayment timeline.

Which piece of technical debt have you been paying interest on for longer than you would admit?