Jon Thornton writes on the Squarespace Engineering blog:

“Tech debt” is a dirty word in the software engineering world. It’s often said with an air of regret; a past mistake that will eventually need to be atoned for with refactoring.

Financial debt isn’t universally reviled in the same way. Your friend takes out a mortgage to buy a house and what do you say? Congratulations! …

The difference is intention. What if tech debt wasn’t always an accident, caused by incorrect assumptions and unexpected circumstances? How would you spend a tech debt mortgage?

We also talked about tech debt in a similar manner on Founders Talk #60.