Tech Debt:
it's a mortgage
Tech Debt:
How to manage it before it impacts your startup
In the startup world, speed is everything. Launching an MVP before the competition, iterating on user feedback, and growing at breakneck speed. In this race against time, phrases like, "Let's just make it work for now" or "The important thing is to go live," are the norm.
These phrases, familiar to both founders and developers, are the very moment you sign for a mortgage: Technical Debt.
What is Technical Debt? And What Isn't It?
Often seen as the enemy, let's be clear: technical debt is not a bug.
A bug is an error, an unexpected behavior in the software. Technical debt, however, is the result of a choice, often a deliberate one. It’s the trade-off you accept when you choose a quick-and-dirty solution today, knowing it will require more work to fix or rewrite in the future.
For example, you take on technical debt when you:
- Postpone refactoring to meet a deadline.
- Write code without adequate test coverage.
- Choose a simple architecture, knowing it won't handle future load.
- Leave documentation inadequate, making the code difficult to approach later on.
It's not a failure, but a strategic decision (or a poor one, if made unconsciously). Sometimes, taking on this debt is the right choice to test a market hypothesis and survive. The problem arises when you forget you have it.
Why Is It a Mortgage?
Many of us, unfortunately, understand financial mortgages all too well. Let's apply that concept to code to identify the real risk.
- The capital: This is the initial shortcut. It's the time you save today by not writing tests, choosing a simpler solution, or delaying a complex architectural decision. It has its pros and cons.
- The interest: This is the future cost of that shortcut. Every time a developer has to touch that piece of code, it takes longer. They have to decipher complex logic, work around the limitations of the initial solution, and be careful not to break anything. This extra time is the interest you pay, and it's often hidden.
Just like a financial mortgage, the interest on technical debt compounds. The longer you wait to "pay it back" (e.g. by refactoring), the more the cost of maintenance and new development increases non-linearly. Eventually, the entire system becomes so fragile and expensive to modify that problems become increasingly critical and blocking. Adding a simple feature can take days. This is the point where technical debt can cause a startup to fail or, at the very least, undermine its path to breakeven.
Quick code vs Clean code?
Let's look at a simple, practical example. Imagine we need to display a different welcome message depending on the user type (e.g. "Free," "Premium," etc.).
The "quick" version
For the MVP, we might write a function like this, directly in the UI component:
function WelcomeMessage({ user }) {
let message = 'Welcome, guest!';
if (user && user.plan === 'Free') {
message = 'Welcome! Upgrade to Premium for more features.';
} else if (user && user.plan === 'Premium') {
message = `Welcome back, ${user.name}! Enjoy your Premium access.`;
} else if (user && user.plan === 'Admin') {
message = 'Admin Panel Access Granted.';
}
return <h1>{message}</h1>;
}Why is this debt? It works, and it's fast to write. But it's fragile. If we add a "Business" plan tomorrow, want to change the messages, or add new languages, we have to modify the internal logic of this component. The business logic is mixed with the presentation layer, making the code hard to test and maintain.
The "clean" Version
A more robust solution, however, separates concerns. The logic that decides which message to show is isolated in a dedicated module, while the component only handles how to display it. This simple decoupling—regardless of whether the logic lives on the client or server—makes the system easier to maintain, test, and evolve.
// file: services/greetingService.js
const messages = {
DEFAULT: 'Welcome, guest!',
FREE: 'Welcome! Upgrade to Premium for more features.',
PREMIUM: (name) => `Welcome back, ${name}! Enjoy your Premium access.`,
ADMIN: 'Admin Panel Access Granted.',
};
export function getWelcomeMessage(user) {
if (!user?.plan) {
return messages.DEFAULT;
}
const message = messages[user.plan.toUpperCase()] ?? messages.DEFAULT;
return typeof message === 'function' ? message(user?.name) : message;
}import { getWelcomeMessage } from '../services/greetingService.js';
function WelcomeMessage({ user }) {
const message = getWelcomeMessage(user);
return <h1>{message}</h1>;
}Why is this better? We've invested a bit more time upfront, but it will save us time in the future. Now, to add a welcome message for a new plan, we just need to modify a dictionary (though it would be even better to use an internationalization system like i18n).
This example is basic, but in a real project, these debts accumulate in hundreds of places, making manual analysis impractical.
Recently, we assisted a major player in the automotive industry with targeted Code Quality Assessment activities. The goal was to provide a detailed analysis of a couple of applications containing tens of thousands of files. A completely manual analysis would have been prohibitive, time-consuming and too expensive.
In scenarios like these, where applications are already complex and technical debt hasn't been tracked over time, using automated tools is not an option, but a necessity.
Useful tools
Fortunately, there are static code analysis tools that scan your codebase for issues, "code smells," and vulnerabilities, acting as a financial advisor for your "mortgage."
- SonarQube: A comprehensive platform for continuous code quality inspection. It analyzes code for bugs, vulnerabilities, and, most importantly, "code smells" (indicators of technical debt). It provides detailed reports, estimates the time required to repay the debt, and integrates seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines.
- ESLint: In the JavaScript/TypeScript world, this is a fundamental tool. It allows you to enforce style rules and best practices, identifying problematic code patterns as you write. It's highly configurable and helps prevent the accumulation of "small" debt from the start (and let's not even talk about the rampant use of any types, right?).
Beyond specific tools, incorporating automated analysis into your workflow is like receiving a constant report on the state of your debt. It makes it visible and quantifiable.
Managing the debt: strategies to survive
The goal isn't necessarily to eliminate all debt, but to manage it, deciding where to invest time and resources for the highest return on investment (ROI).
- Incur debt intentionally: Taking a shortcut, especially an architectural one, must be an explicit and agreed-upon decision. The team must understand why it's being done and be aware of the consequences.
- Create a "debt registry": It's useful to document technical debt just as you track bugs. Create specific tickets in your project management system (e.g. Jira, Asana) and label them clearly (something like "Technical Debt").
- Plan the repayment: Debt doesn't fix itself. It makes a lot of sense to dedicate a fixed percentage of each sprint or development cycle to addressing it. It may feel like you're wasting time, but it's a crucial investment.
- Prioritize repayment: Not all debt is created equal. Prioritize the debt located in the most critical and frequently modified parts of your application, that's where the "interest" accumulates the fastest.
Conclusion
Treating technical debt like a mortgage, and not like a series of random mistakes, completely changes the perspective. It's a part of the development cycle, not something that "just happens." You must transform it from a technical problem into a strategic lever that a company can decide to use to accelerate, provided there is a repayment plan when appropriate.
A mature technology partner will never promise you debt-free code.
Instead, they will help you understand when it's wise to take on debt to conquer the market and when it's crucial to pause, consolidate, and "repay it," ensuring your startup can run fast today without tripping over itself tomorrow. The management of technical debt is the hallmark of a company built to last.
If you need help, we're here for you.
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Tag: Tecnologia
: 24 settembre 2025
: 24 settembre 2025
