Imagine your codebase is like your room. At first, everything is clean, neat, and organized. But as time goes on, you get busy, cut corners, and suddenly—your once-tidy space is a mess. That, my friend, is tech debt in action!
What is Tech Debt?
Tech debt happens when developers take shortcuts to ship features quickly instead of writing clean, scalable code. It’s like saying, “I’ll clean this later,” but never actually doing it. Over time, this leads to bugs, slow performance, and hard-to-maintain code.
How Tech Debt happens?
If you’re a developer, chances are you’ve encountered tech debt without even realizing it. It creeps into projects little by little, often in ways that seem harmless at first. Here are some common ways it sneaks in and makes your life harder: 🚨💻
- Spaghetti Code – Too many nested functions, random event listeners, or copy-pasted code that nobody dares to touch.
- Ignoring Updates – Sticking with old React or Vue versions because updating them sounds scary or management doesn’t give you time to do it.
- Messy State Management – Passing props five levels deep in React instead of using context or state management properly.
- Hardcoded Values Everywhere – Using magic numbers and strings in your code instead of constants or environment variables with some comments along the way.
- No Code Reviews – Pushing code directly to production without a second pair of eyes, leading to hidden issues and confusing changes.
- Too Many Dependencies – Installing a library for a simple function instead of writing a few lines of vanilla JS.
Why should you care?
At first, tech debt might not seem like a big deal. Your app still works, right? But over time:
- Development slows down – Small changes break things in unexpected ways. 🐌⚠️
- Bugs become harder to fix – No one remembers why that
ifstatement exists. - Onboarding new devs is painful – “Why do we use such an old React version?!”
- Feature Delivery Becomes Risky – Every new feature feels like a gamble because you’re afraid it might break something unexpectedly. (Tests might help here, but tech debt will not make your life easier)
How to reduce Tech Debt
Here are more ways to reduce tech debt and keep your codebase clean:
- Refactor Regularly – Small cleanups make a big difference. You could do it with separate pull requests or small changes on a feature pull request. I’d go with the first choice, but let’s be realistic… some times the second will also happen.
- Automate Code Formatting – Use Prettier or ESLint to enforce consistent coding styles and avoid messy formatting. This is a personal choice for sure; I usually prefer ESlint to Prettier.
- Write Reusable Code – Stop copy-pasting, use components and helper functions. DRY is your friend here.
- Keep Dependencies Under Control – Use only what you really need.
- Document Decisions – A simple README can save future you a headache or a good JSDoc maybe?
Final thoughts
Tech debt isn’t always bad. Sometimes, quick fixes are necessary to meet deadlines. But the key is to pay it off before it becomes unmanageable. So next time you cut corners, make sure to clean your room later!
What’s the worst tech debt you’ve encountered? Share your story in the comments! 🚀
