Technical Debt (Tech Debt): A Complete Guide [Video]

Technical debt is a concept that originated in software engineering and refers to the future costs due to shortcuts taken in system development.

The term was first introduced by software developer Ward Cunningham in 1992. He used the analogy of financial debt to describe how developers, when under pressure to deliver quickly, often write code or build systems that are not optimal, with the intention of going back later to improve it. Just like financial debt accrues interest over time, technical debt can cause more issues and require more resources to fix as the system grows.

With the rise of real-time data streaming architectures, technical debt in data infrastructure can manifest in a variety of ways, from poor data partitioning to inadequate replication strategies. These systems are designed to handle massive volumes of data in real time, making them more prone to accumulating debt when shortcuts are taken to meet deadlines or adapt to changing business …