We are excited to announce the 2nd Junior Program Committee (Junior PC) for the Technical Debt Conference 2026 (TechDebt 2026). The Junior PC is an initiative designed to train the next generation of Technical Debt reviewers. A Junior PC provides opportunities for early-career researchers (PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, new faculty members, and industry practitioners) who are enthusiastic to get more involved in the academic peer-review process but have not yet served on TechDebt’s technical research track program committee. This opportunity allows future PC members to learn first-hand about the peer-review process, gain experience as reviewers, and learn from senior researchers in the field.

All submissions to the TechDebt 2026 research track will be jointly reviewed by regular and Junior PC members. Each paper is expected to receive three reviews from regular PC members and one to two additional reviews from Junior PC members. Junior PC members will also receive feedback to improve their reviews throughout the process. Junior PC members are reviewers with the same duties and responsibilities as the regular PC members—they must write professional and timely reviews and contribute to the discussion. Based on successful implementations of similar initiatives from other venues (e.g., MSR), we anticipate that the involvement of Junior PC members will enhance the overall quality of reviews.

Requirements

Before the TechDebt submission deadline, all PC members will receive guidance on review quality, confidentiality, ethics standards, and effective participation in discussions. The guidance is aligned with the ACMPeer Review Policy. Thus, Junior PC members must abide by the same principles and restrictions applicable to regular PC members. This includes, but is not limited to, reviewing free of bias, protecting confidentiality of both the authors and reviewers of the submissions, limiting the use of AI to only improving an originally made review, and preventing the use in any way of results from reviewed papers before such papers have been published.

Junior PC members must commit to writing detailed and rigorous reviews for papers assigned to them by the allotted deadline. Timely review commitment is essential to the Junior PC’s good functioning. Candidates who might be unable to fulfill their reviewing duties should refrain from applying. Junior PC members will be expected to review a load of 2-3 papers per member, submit on-time review submissions, and participate in an online discussion.