How to Tackle and Reduce Technical Debt for Long-Term Success

Technical debt is like financial debt—if you let it accumulate unchecked, it compounds, making future work more expensive and difficult. Many companies recognize the impact of technical debt on productivity and system reliability but struggle to take meaningful steps to reduce it. While addressing tech debt requires effort, it’s an investment that pays off in efficiency, innovation, and cost savings over time.

Identifying and Tackling the Debt Head-On

The first step in reducing technical debt is recognizing where it exists. Some debt is intentional—incurred to ship a product quickly with a plan to fix it later—while other forms arise naturally as technology evolves. Regardless of how it happens, the key is tracking and prioritizing tech debt as part of your development process rather than treating it as an afterthought.

Technical debt needs to be paid down in a structured manner, much like real debt. Some teams allocate a fixed percentage of their development efforts to addressing it, while others schedule focused refactoring efforts when debt reaches a critical threshold. Either approach works as long as leadership supports it and engineers have the time to fix underlying issues rather than constantly pushing out new features.

Managing Software Development Technical Debt

This is the most common and traditional form of technical debt, originating from software development itself. It often arises from rushed implementations, outdated codebases, or a lack of proper testing. Additionally, as new features get implemented, the source code becomes increasingly convoluted, making maintenance and scalability more challenging harder over time. These issues slow down feature development, introduce defects, and increase maintenance costs. Addressing this requires structured efforts through different strategies:

• Refactoring: This is an ongoing effort best suited for software that evolves quickly. It involves making small, continuous improvements to the codebase to maintain its health and prevent major rewrites. Tight automation test coverage reduces the risk of breaking features while making enhancements.

  
  

• Rewrite: In cases where technical debt is extremely high, a complete rewrite of the system may be easier or cheaper than gradual improvements. This is particularly necessary when the system’s architecture is outdated, or the existing features and business requirements are poorly understood (a “black box” scenario).

  
  

• Migration: When maintaining an existing system is no longer cost-effective, moving to a different platform or framework can be the best solution. If a cheaper third-party solution is available, migration should be considered, but the costs and risks of transition must be carefully evaluated.

Dealing with Platform-Related Technical Debt

Technology doesn’t stand still. Even if your system remains unchanged, the world around it evolves, and what was once cutting-edge can quickly become a liability. This kind of platform-related debt manifests in several ways: outdated software, poorly integrated tools, and excessive customization.

1. Outdated or Legacy Platform Debt

Running on an outdated platform—whether it’s a legacy CMS, an old e-commerce system, or a CRM that no longer receives updates—creates mounting problems over time. Security vulnerabilities, lack of support, and missing modern capabilities can prevent businesses from scaling efficiently.

The best approach is to assess the long-term viability of the platform. If it’s no longer actively supported or struggles to keep up with new business needs, it’s time to migrate. This could mean upgrading to a newer version of the same platform or switching to a different solution that better aligns with your growth strategy. While migrations can be costly, the alternative—maintaining an outdated system full of workarounds—often results in higher long-term expenses.

2. Integration and Tool Debt

Many companies rely on multiple disconnected tools for accounting, analytics, customer engagement, and marketing automation. Without proper integration, these tools create data silos, making it difficult to derive meaningful insights and automate workflows. Poorly connected systems also increase manual work, slow down processes, and introduce inconsistencies.

The solution is to take a step back and evaluate whether your technology stack is working for or against you. Investing in integration solutions—whether through APIs, middleware, or native platform connectors—can dramatically improve efficiency. In some cases, consolidating multiple tools into a single, more comprehensive platform reduces complexity and maintenance costs.

3. Customization Debt

Over-customizing off-the-shelf software can seem like a good idea at first, but it often leads to long-term headaches. When businesses go too far in tailoring platforms to their specific needs, they risk locking themselves into rigid, fragile systems that only a handful of developers understand.

Over-customization of software can lead to long-term maintenance issues and vendor lock-in. Businesses that heavily modify off-the-shelf platforms often find themselves dependent on the original developers, making future updates and bug fixes difficult. Using standard templates or built-in customization options within a platform is generally a safer approach that ensures long-term stability and ease of maintenance.

Businesses should carefully balance customization against maintainability. Wherever possible, it’s best to work within a platform’s existing framework rather than forcing it into an unnatural shape. Customization should be done with a clear understanding of long-term implications—if something breaks, will you have the expertise to fix it?

Shifting to a Sustainable Approach

Addressing technical debt isn’t a one-time effort; it’s an ongoing discipline. Successful teams embed tech debt management into their workflows, ensuring it never spirals out of control. Here are three ways to make that happen:

1. Incorporate tech debt reduction into your roadmap. Rather than treating it as a separate project, allocate dedicated time in regular development cycles to addressing debt.
   

2. Foster a culture of long-term thinking. Encourage engineers to consider the maintainability of their code rather than just focusing on speed. Technical leadership should enforce best practices, and management must support long-term quality improvements.

   
   

3. Stay ahead of platform and tool changes. Regularly reviewing your technology stack, anticipating updates before they become urgent, and strategically planning migrations can prevent costly disruptions. In some cases, seeking external expertise can provide fresh insights, ensuring your systems remain competitive, secure, and scalable for future growth.

   
   

Technical debt doesn’t have to be an anchor that slows you down. With the right approach, it can be managed effectively, allowing your business to remain innovative, adaptable, and ready for future growth.

How does your company handle technical debt? Let’s discuss in the comments.