If you develop software, you’ve encountered technical debt. It’s inevitable. Who hasn’t had to make a quick fix to meet a deadline or skip a test due to time constraints? The problem isn’t the debt itself—it’s how you manage it.
The key is understanding when it’s worth taking on and, more importantly, how and when to pay it off.
When Is Technical Debt a Problem?
Not all debt is bad. Sometimes, sacrificing perfect code for speed makes sense, like when launching an MVP or meeting an urgent deadline. But if the debt piles up unchecked, every new feature becomes a struggle, and the team starts feeling the impact:
- New features take much longer to implement than they should.
- The team spends more time fixing bugs than building new things.
- Frustration levels rise, and developers start leaving.
- Even small changes require rework across multiple parts of the code.
- Simple tasks start feeling complex and time-consuming.
If any of this sounds familiar, it might be time to take a more strategic approach to technical debt.
How to Prevent Technical Debt from Getting Out of Control
You can’t eliminate debt completely, but you can keep it from becoming a major problem. Here are some practices to help maintain a healthy balance:
Well-Executed Code Reviews
Beyond ensuring quality, code reviews are great for sharing knowledge and discussing best practices. Having a structured review checklist helps prevent small mistakes from turning into big problems later.
Strong Automated Testing
Good test coverage reduces bugs and makes future refactoring safer.
Clearly Defined Standards and Best Practices
Having clear guidelines for code structure and architecture makes a huge difference in maintaining project consistency.
Well-Scoped Features
Last-minute changes are a major source of technical debt. When the development team is involved in defining features from the start, decisions tend to be more sustainable.
Small, Incremental Deliveries
Smaller changes are easier to test, review, and fix. A continuous deployment workflow minimizes the risk of accumulating technical debt.
How to Manage and Reduce Technical Debt Over Time
If debt has already piled up, you can’t just fix everything at once. The best approach is to incorporate it into your workflow and pay it off gradually.
1. Set Aside Dedicated Time to Address Technical Debt
Debt-Reduction Sprints
When technical debt reaches a critical level and is actively hurting productivity, it may be necessary to pause everything and focus solely on fixing it. This means dedicating an entire sprint to refactoring problematic code, removing outdated dependencies, and improving the system’s overall structure. This approach works best when both engineering and product teams agree that debt is slowing down strategic deliveries.
Allocating X% of Each Sprint to Technical Debt
Instead of halting new feature development completely, a more sustainable approach is to dedicate a fixed percentage of each sprint to addressing technical debt. Typically, this ranges from 10% to 20% of the sprint. This allows teams to reduce debt incrementally without disrupting the product roadmap. Continuous improvements prevent the need for massive rewrites later.
Friday Fix or Refactor Friday
Some companies dedicate part of their Fridays to small code improvements, such as minor refactoring, removing legacy code, or improving tests and documentation. This creates a regular opportunity to tackle issues that might otherwise be postponed due to tight deadlines. It also gives the team a breather at the end of the week, fostering a culture of continuous improvement without slowing down major deliveries.
2. Map and Prioritize Technical Debt
Not all debt needs immediate attention. These questions help determine what to tackle first:
- Is this slowing down the team?
- Are customers affected? If so, it’s a bug and needs urgent fixing.
- Is maintenance becoming too costly? The more expensive the debt, the more urgent it is.
- Is this feature even used? If not, it might be safe to postpone.
3. Improve Code Reviews
Having a structured checklist for code reviews helps prevent new debt. Some useful questions to ask:
- Does this code follow our standards?
- Are we creating new debt or paying off existing debt?
- Can we simplify or modularize this solution?
How Technical Debt Affects Teams
Technical debt isn’t just a code problem—it directly affects people. A messy, fragile system frustrates developers, lowers morale, and increases burnout. Productivity drops, and ultimately, you risk losing talented engineers.
This isn’t just theory—according to a recent Stack Overflow survey, 63% of developers consider technical debt one of their biggest frustrations at work.
If you’re an engineering leader, fostering a culture that values code quality can make a huge difference. A team working with well-structured code delivers faster, with less stress, and higher motivation.
What Can You Do Today?
Dealing with technical debt doesn’t have to be complicated. Here are three simple steps you can take right now:
- Identify the most critical technical debt and document its impact.
- Allocate dedicated time in sprints to address it.
- Encourage the team to improve the code a little with every iteration.
Technical debt won’t disappear on its own. But if you start treating it as part of your engineering strategy—rather than a problem for your “future self” to deal with—your team will gain speed, productivity, and, most importantly, higher-quality software.
