What Do Engineers Really Think About Technical Debt?
My team at Stepsize has surveyed 200+ Engineers and published the State of Technical Debt 2021 Report that explores the impact of tech debt on developer morale, velocity, and customer experience.
In this article, I’ll share some of the key learnings from the report and discuss what Engineers really think about technical debt.
It’s no surprise that technical debt causes bugs, outages, quality issues and slows down the development process. But the impact of tech debt is far greater than that.
Employee morale is one of the most difficult things to manage, especially now that companies are switching to long-term remote work solutions. Many Engineers mentioned that technical debt is actually a major driver of decreasing morale. They often feel like they are forced to prioritize new features over vital maintenance work that could improve their experience and velocity, and this is taking a significant toll.
When we published this statement, one of the most popular comments was: “That little? I spend way more time on technical debt!”
