Tech debt is bound to happen in a software engineering and development company and must be addressed on time. There are different causes of its existence, and it is better for you to know all about it so that you can deal with them effectively. When you do not review your code developed on a regular basis, you can be sure that there are some faults or bugs in it which would affect the functionality of the code in the long run and result in accumulation of tech debt. Also, if your team of developers lacks the proper knowledge and experience of the project domain, its technology, and framework you stand a high chance of getting codes with faults in it and accumulate tech debt.
Knowledge Of Clean Code
With the rapid development in the IT industry more and more students are opting for this field and most of the software engineers, developers and team leaders are young and have less experience. A fresher even can join IT industry having a proper certificate irrespective of having no knowledge of clean code. It is because this aspect is not taught in the colleges as a part of their curriculum. Students are taught about the ways to write code but not about the ways to write a quality and clean code. This results in faulty code production. Companies that can afford to give proper training to their new staff, as well as their regular staff on different programming languages can avoid this problem.
Transfer Of Knowledge And Tasks
Lack of training and learning is not only among the newer recruits but also in the middle management levels. They stagnate due to their lack of initiative and continue with the existing code style, however, old it may be, and therefore resulting in tech debt accumulation. Use of outdated documents and inefficiency to transfer leads to the developers also result in tech debt. Such ignorant managers emphasize on the cost and schedule more than the quality without knowing the impact it would have in the long run.
Squeeze Estimation Of Development
This is a drawback which is seen in most of the software development and engineering company and their management levels. They do not follow the code reviewing rigorously and usually does it towards the end of the process. The time required for regular reviewing is eaten up by squeezing estimation for the sake of development. This estimation is done without proper consideration of the variance according to the cone of uncertainty which features some unproductive tasks like extra development and testing environment setup, resolving code conflicts, a compilation of errors, the configuration for testing and much more.
Ignorance And Delay
Running regular test would help you to identify tech debt, and you must not ignore or delay in addressing it. The good news is that just like you would consolidate credit card debt to clear off your old multiple debts, you can also clear off your tech debt easily. You just have to be diligent and refactor it whenever required, run and re-run tests regularly to identify any new formation.