Technical debt: a practical guide for growing software companies

Technical debt can accumulate for many reasons. A “ship now, fix later” mindset leads to compromises in code quality, architecture designed to support modest demand buckles as you grow, stretched budgets, talent gaps, feature creep—the list goes on. Whatever the reasons, growing software companies that can effectively manage their technical debt can expect faster, more predictable deployments, improved product stability, as well as happier customers and engineering teams.

While the accumulation of some technical debt is inevitable, it can wreak havoc on your agility and budgets if left unaddressed. But it’s important to remember that not all technical debt is bad, and investing too many resources in managing it can create its own issues. It’s a balancing act that relies on the ability to recognize what—and when—debt needs to be “paid.”

Software development specialist Martin Fowler categorizes technical debt into four quadrants: reckless, prudent, deliberate, and inadvertent. This system can help you accurately identify the intention behind technical debt and judge whether it is good or bad. For example, prudent and deliberate debt might be taken on to guarantee you ship within a certain time frame. In circumstances where fast delivery offsets potential risk, this can be an acceptable trade-off.

On the opposite end of the scale, reckless and inadvertent debt might be incurred if your team attempts to produce code without the skills or knowledge to do so. This can be particularly problematic as they are more likely to make mistakes and not understand how to fix them or even realize they’ve been made at all.

Once you’ve got a handle on how to identify good and bad debt, you’ll be able to decide when to incur and repay it—that process is a collaborative one. Technical debt is about more than just technology, it impacts finances, customer experiences, internal productivity, and more. Preemptive measures can help limit the accumulation of debt during development and help departments work more cohesively and effectively together.

For example, working backwards from your customers can help you effectively prioritize features, minimize technical debt, and work toward a more valuable minimum viable product (MVP). When there’s cross-department consensus on what you’re aiming for, it’s easier to avoid feature creep or overpromising capabilities to customers that ultimately arrive late, if at all. Open dialogue is also critical; development and business teams need to be open and realistic about the time and resources they require to achieve their objectives or pay off debt.

If you’re already facing mounting technical debt, the first thing to do is to create a manageable plan. Start small and begin with high-impact, low-effort improvements. Try and focus on debt that impacts the customer, revenue, and security. As discussed, there’s good debt and bad debt, and sometimes the best way to reduce it is to be honest about whether certain functionalities are worth continuing to invest in. If a feature is rarely used by customers, it may need to be deprecated.

Set realistic targets based on your team size and capabilities, establish coding standards to prevent further debt accumulation, and create a technical debt backlog to help you prioritize debt reduction alongside feature development. Building technical debt reviews into your sprints can help debt reduction remain top-of-mind and make it easier to track progress. Leveraging tools like SonarQube can also help you quantify and track technical debt with greater accuracy.

Cloud technologies provide expansive capabilities that can make it easier for software companies to control and reduce technical debt. Working with a cloud partner like AWS can help you foster clean, modular design, automate testing and continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/DD), simplify code monitoring and iteration, reduce the need for error-prone manual workarounds, and more.

Tools like AWS Amplify, AWS Lambda, and Amazon API Gateway can help you accelerate prototyping and feature development while avoiding “quick and dirty” code. You can also power CI/CD by automating building, testing, and deployment with AWS CodePipeline and AWS CodeDeploy. Cutting-edge AI-powered coding companions and tools can also play a valuable role in debt reduction. For example, Novacomp, a leading IT company based in Latin America reduced its technical debt by 60 percent with Amazon Q Developer.

Every software company has technical debt, but just because you can’t be debt-free doesn’t mean it should stand in the way of revenue growth and customer satisfaction. By adopting the strategies outlined in this article, you can preemptively avoid unnecessary debt accumulation and better manage the debt you do have—even tactically turn it to your advantage. Just remember, there’s no one-time fix for technical debt, it’s an ongoing process and a shared responsibility.