First, understand why developers hesitate to tackle the technical debt. Why do developers hesitate to tackle the technical debt? This may be due to ° lack of knowledge ° fear of unknown impact on legacy system List down all such reasons, discuss and mentor developers about why fixing technical debt is important. 1. More technical debt means more complexity. If we develop new requirements on top of the existing issues, it is more difficult and time-consuming to fix bugs. 2. More technical debt leads to low-quality software. 3. More technical debt leads to poor user experience and frustrated customers. Discuss the consequences and advantages of fixing technical debt with developers and try to get their focus back on fixing technical debt

I have never met a developer that hesitated to take technical debt when the opportunity was there for them to take. I have found much of their effort and focus has been driven by feature release and business needs. This is where the devops team and product manager need to align on priorizing technical debt, production stability, along with feature releases to ensure there is a effort to ballance out the delivery. As the technical debt is cleared the team can free up more bandwidth to focus on feature releases, as one would assume that after clearing up technical debt, the team will have less operational breakfixes that reduce their volicity.

Unfortunately, it reflects a lowered bar in quality standards for software engineering. Genuine, highly professional software engineers who joined this occupation by vocation always consider technical debt an integral part of the indisputable quality standards. The only real way to solve this problem is to hire these software engineers and let them lead and teach those with potential. Unfortunately, it is impossible to change the whole industry. It is too deeply rotten.

Involving the developers during Sprint planning, which enables them to come up with technical ideas and solutions to the product backlog and eventually come up with timelines on the solution also putting into consideration the challenges that may occur during the development process.

Do not call it technical debt. Debt sounds like it’s a fault of developers. But in fact it is usually a better design that takes more time and budget that is not given to developers by clients and managers. Give developers more time , praise it as a better design - then it will be done.

While defining Roadmap, a PM (or whoever is defining it) needs to be 'inclusive' to cover all aspects of backlog (incl using tech debt, POCs, migrations, etc.) along with needed customer features and moonshot ideas. 'Rocks Pebbles and Sand' applies here too

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To get developers on board with addressing technical debt within deadlines, communicate its impact on team velocity, defect rates, and long-term costs. Tie technical debt to business goals by showing how it improves system stability and accelerates future development. Prioritize high-impact areas and tackle debt incrementally, integrating it into sprints or alongside feature work. Assign ownership, celebrate progress, and use tools like linters to track and manage debt. Secure leadership buy-in by highlighting ROI and customer satisfaction. Monitor progress to showcase measurable benefits and keep efforts aligned with goals.