One feature turns into ten. One developer becomes ten developers. One shortcut becomes ten messy workarounds. Before you know it, shipping anything new takes twice as long. Sound familiar?
Tech debt creeps in quietly. A hack here, a rushed fix there. It all seems fine until your platform starts slowing down. Features take longer to ship, bugs multiply, and onboarding becomes painful. Meanwhile, pressure to deliver doesn’t let up. Here’s how to tackle tech debt without grinding your roadmap to a halt, using practical tactics we’ve applied at high-growth scale-ups.
What technical debt is (and why it often hides in plain sight)
Think of it like piling dishes in the sink. One becomes many, and suddenly cooking becomes a chore. In code, it’s pressure-fueled and shortcuts are made with the hope of circling back later. That rarely happens.
But technical debt isn’t just code. It lives in unclear processes and duct-taped documentation only few understand. It shows up when design decisions aren’t captured, internal APIs go untested, or when there’s no design system guiding consistency. Debt starts as a trade-off, but becomes culture when left unchecked.
How to spot it (before it breaks your team)
Not all debt shows up as bugs or crashes. You’ll feel it when simple features start taking longer, bugs resurface, and devs avoid parts of the codebase. Estimates get vague. PMs get frustrated. Onboarding slows down.
At one scale-up, our team found engineers actively dodging entire sections of the codebase. We rolled out strict linting rules, added AI-powered code reviews (Bito), and coupled each new feature with adjacent refactors. Within three months, dev velocity bounced back, bugs dropped, and they were able to hire faster than before.
Why fast-growing teams unintentionally create tech debt
In the rush to scale, documentation lags, code ownership blurs, and best practices get pushed aside. Developers rely on old assumptions. Product teams optimize for shipping speed, not structural soundness. Without a shared design system, devs make one-off decisions that pile up into inconsistency and fragility.
And because debt isn’t visible in dashboards, leadership assumes all is well. Until everything takes longer.
Paying off tech debt without freezing your roadmap
You don’t need a rebuild. Here’s what we recommend:
Track tech debt in your backlog with clear owners and impact
Reserve 10–20% of each sprint for cleanup
Pair refactoring with new features
Automate code reviews, linting, and tests
Prioritize what slows you down, not just what’s annoying
A culture of "clean as you go" avoids the need for disruptive, expensive cleanups later.
Design systems: more than visual polish
We treat design systems as infrastructure. They reduce tech debt by offering reusable building blocks, shared language, and consistency across teams. Instead of reinventing components, devs have a stable, tested set to rely on. That makes your platform easier to scale, test, and extend.
When to refactor and when to rebuild
Some debt is fine. But if you’re spending more time explaining a problem than fixing it, the structure is probably broken. If the architecture holds up, refactor. If every change breaks something, or if your tech stack can’t support growth, rebuilding might be the better long-term call. Rebuilds aren’t light decisions, but sometimes they’re the cleanest path forward.
A real-world example
We worked with a scaling client as they transitioned from MVP to a mature platform. As our team started working inside their existing codebase, it was evident that speed had been given the priority. After a few sprints/cycles, it became clear that tech debt was slowing us down. That’s when we implemented strict linting rules and applied modern code conventions and patterns.
Together, we focused on two things. First, we treated every new feature as a chance to clean up related code. Second, we rolled out a design system to standardize the front-end. That made it easier to add features quickly and with fewer bugs. Within a few months, velocity improved and the platform became much easier to work with.
Mistakes to avoid
Don’t treat tech debt as a dev-only concern. It slows delivery, affects hiring, and chips away at morale. Don’t wait until frustration boils over. And don’t assume stakeholders understand the trade-offs, make the cost of tech debt tangible and visible.
Final thoughts
Tech debt is unavoidable. But it’s manageable. The fastest-moving teams aren’t the ones who avoid it, they’re the ones who keep it under control. Wondering how much tech debt is slowing your team down? Let’s map it out.
