Tech Debt
Noun · Development
Definitions
The accumulated cost of shortcuts, quick fixes, and deferred refactoring in a codebase. Like financial debt, it accrues interest — the longer you leave it, the more expensive future changes become.
In plain English: The mess that builds up in code when you take shortcuts to ship faster, making future work harder and slower until you clean it up.
Example: "We shipped fast but now we're drowning in tech debt. Every new feature takes three times longer than it should."