Shifting from Tech Debt to Tech Capital 🏦

Tech Debt vs. Tech Capital

The article differentiates between 'tech debt' (fixing existing problems) and 'tech capital' (investments that create future leverage). It argues that while addressing tech debt is important, its returns are capped, unlike tech capital which compounds over time.

Limitations of Focusing on Tech Debt

• Tech debt cannot be completely eliminated.
• The ROI of fixing tech debt is limited.
• Focusing on refactoring might not improve business results.
• There's always more tech debt to address.

The article emphasizes that tech debt often focuses on reducing pain, with limited overall gains. Instead, the focus should shift to building assets.

Building Tech Capital

Tech capital creates long-term value and enhances the engineering organization. It's not about features but about compounding value and improvements that increase business value over time.

Examples of Tech Capital

• Engineering Velocity: Investing in developer experience (DX) to increase shipping speed and reliability.
• Internal Superpowers: Providing better tools to marketing, sales, or customer support to remove bottlenecks.
• Data Leverage: Building systems that generate actionable insights, rather than just storing data.

The key is to ask: will this investment make us faster, more powerful, or smarter six months from now?