Technical debt is the gap between the code you wrote and the code you should have written. Every shortcut adds up.
The real cost
Technical debt accounts for 20-40% of development time in mature codebases. For every 5 features you ship, 1-2 are just paying interest on past decisions.
How to fix it
We use the Boy Scout Rule — always leave the code cleaner than you found it. Combined with dedicated refactor sprints every quarter, this keeps debt manageable.
