What is technical debt and how does it hurt developer joy

This question is about the concept of technical debt, the term describing the long-run negative impact of short-term, expeditious code decisions on software quality. Technical debt typically arises when programmers choose a quick fix or shortcut in a way that later becomes a challenge for maintaining, scaling, or extending the software.

The question also ties technical debt to developer satisfaction, or "joy," to investigate how outstanding technical debt may decrease motivation, increase frustration, and impede productivity as developers are forced to spend more time managing or fixing legacy issues rather than building new features.