March 29, 2025
Managing Technical Debt: A Practical Approach for Engineering Leaders

March 29, 2025
Technical debt is an inevitable part of software development. While it allows teams to move fast in the short term, unmanaged technical debt can lead to reduced productivity, increased bugs, and longer development cycles. As a Software Engineering Manager, striking a balance between delivering features and maintaining a sustainable codebase is crucial.
In this post, we’ll explore practical strategies for identifying, managing, and paying down technical debt while keeping your team productive.
Technical debt arises when teams take shortcuts to expedite feature delivery, often at the cost of code quality or long-term maintainability. It can take various forms:
Unchecked technical debt slows down development and increases maintenance costs. It can lead to:
If you don’t track technical debt, it’s easy to ignore. Use a backlog or ticketing system to log areas of concern. Label tickets with “tech debt” so they’re easy to prioritize in future sprints.
Not all technical debt needs immediate attention. Focus on the debt that slows development the most. Ask:
Integrate refactoring into your sprint planning. Consider:
Encourage developers to leave the codebase better than they found it. Small, incremental improvements prevent debt from accumulating over time.
Prevent new debt by establishing and enforcing best practices:
Automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and dependency monitoring tools help prevent technical debt from growing unchecked. Invest in tools that streamline maintenance.
Non-technical stakeholders may not always understand the impact of technical debt. Use metrics to illustrate the cost of inaction:
Technical debt is often a trade-off. When making quick decisions, document why a shortcut was taken and set a clear plan to revisit it. This ensures accountability and prevents hidden debt.
Managing technical debt is an ongoing process that requires discipline and prioritization. By making debt visible, tackling high-impact issues, integrating refactoring into development cycles, and securing buy-in from stakeholders, engineering managers can create a sustainable development environment that balances speed and quality.