> a lot of the time when a developer shouts “technical debt” what they are really shouting is “code someone else wrote that I’d rather rewrite than understand”

> a lot of the time when a developer shouts “technical debt” what they are really shouting is “code someone else wrote that I’d rather rewrite than understand” There's a paradox in this viewpoint. On the one hand you believe that your developers are so immature that they automatically shout "tech debt" for any code they didn't personally write ("only MY code is good"), then on the other hand you're confident that the code produced by these immature developers is actually just fine and doesn't have any technical debt. I know you're not speaking in absolutes, so you may be right. You especially may be right about your own specific situation. However, I think a lot of people who have this viewpoint are simply kidding themselves into believing that "everything is awesome, surely there couldn't be any problems because I am the team lead". Just remember the general form of the argument is "my team is great and talented, but I can't trust what they're telling me". It might be the case, but be careful of your own biases.