I find the most helpful way to think about it is to think that most tech debt is introduced by the product manager. A product is built according to spec, and th

I find the most helpful way to think about it is to think that most tech debt is introduced by the product manager. A product is built according to spec, and then the spec changes, a new feature is added, a performance characteristic is changed, and now the engineer has tech debt he must resolve to satisfy the product manager’s spec. This changes the conversation to where tech debt is good, but so is paying it down. Good engineers will better anticipate the possible future changes in requirements and design for them and will incur less “tech debt” to pay back when product adds a feature.