That's some victim blaming right there. If a project has tech debt it is because of management decisions 9/10. They are the ones promising higher management some feature would get done by The Date(tm) without consulting with development if that is feasible. Development then buys time with tech debt (cutting corners, copy pasting, not writing docs/tests).
Then things start getting delayed because developers are paying the "interest" (i.e. regressions due to bad tests) on that original "debt" that was paid to give management what they wanted.
No it isn't. Just because tech debt is the end-product doesn't at all imply that the root cause isn't management, though I can understand why it might be misinterpreted as such.
> Development then buys time with tech debt (cutting corners, copy pasting, not writing docs/tests).
> Then things start getting delayed because developers are paying the "interest" (i.e. regressions due to bad tests) on that original "debt" that was paid to give management what they wanted.
The problem with this analogy is, unlike financial debt, said tech debt is often caused by management, and I'm sure you'd agree. Imagine trying to pay down your credit card and Visa tells you to make more purchases or else you may lose your card entirely (and still have to make your monthly payments). Does management view tech debt as something they share or are responsible for? I doubt it.
What the use of "tech debt" actually does is create an artificial sense of legitimacy around all the problems that exist in a failing process. It obfuscates specifics from management, dazzling them with terminology they believe they understand. It allows developers to believe that nothing is truly their fault. It gaslights developers into seeing a counterproductive or even abusive relationship with management as just debt that they own.
It'd be one thing if it actually did work like debt and, yes, I'm sure it does work that way with some teams. I don't think that's the norm.
Then things start getting delayed because developers are paying the "interest" (i.e. regressions due to bad tests) on that original "debt" that was paid to give management what they wanted.