Tight deadlines, quick fixes, and constant pressure to ship something — we’ve all been there. But those compromises add up until, suddenly, you’re looking at an even bigger problem to solve: reducing technical debt.
“It speaks to the exponentially increasing complexity of the world that we live in, because technical debt is all about complexity,” says Josh Johnston, CTO at X-Team. Each quick fix and short-term decision adds to that complexity, creating hidden challenges that can derail progress if left unchecked.
Technical debt is expected to accrue dramatically in upcoming years. More than 50% of tech leaders expect technical debt to reach moderate or high levels of severity by 2025, according to a Forrester report, and that number will climb to 75% by 2026. Globally, researchers at OliverWyman found, technical debt has already doubled since 2012 — costing businesses a staggering $6 trillion.
Consistently reducing technical debt is key to business survival. Yet addressing technical debt is more than a defensive move. It’s also an opportunity to strengthen your systems and build a foundation for long-term success.
Managing technical debt successfully demands intentional action, thoughtful strategy, and a commitment to building systems that balance long-term scalability with short-term gains. Here’s how to do it.
Technical debt can quietly accumulate in unexpected places, from your code base to your automated tests. It’s often the byproduct of rushing to deliver features without the time or resources to ensure high-quality foundations — a challenge that only grows as you scale your development team.
Here are four times when technical debt often starts building up.
The textbook example of technical debt starts with a business creating a minimum viable product — a quick, functional prototype to bring your idea to life.
Technical debt often starts to pile up when teams can’t let go of their prototypes. You’ve put so much work into it already: building the prototype, validating the idea, and proving the concept. But now comes the really hard part: throwing the prototype away and building the real thing.
“It's a really psychologically hard thing to do,” Josh says. “But you're not investing in the lines of code. You're investing in the knowledge and the things that you learned from that prototype.”
Today’s tech makes it easier than ever to build fast and test ideas, but there's a trade-off: These tools are optimized for short-term wins, not long-term sustainability. In the rush to get results, tech debt often gets overlooked entirely.
“There's kind of a paradox in there because, more often than not, technology makes things feel simpler,” Josh says. “But the way that it does that is by actually adding more complexity and then hiding it.”
For example, flipping a light switch feels simple but depends on intricate systems like power grids and transformers. Using Alexa adds even more hidden complexity through cloud computing and voice recognition. “We often confuse simplicity for convenience,” Josh warns, “and things that are convenient are usually highly complex in ways that we don’t know about.”
This trade-off fuels technical debt when short-term ease takes priority over long-term sustainability.
AI's appeal lies in its promise of automation and efficiency, but it too introduces hidden layers of complexity, driving technical debt much higher. A study from Accenture found that AI is now tied with enterprise applications as the top contributor to technical debt.
Algorithms depend on vast data, intricate models, and evolving systems that are often poorly understood. This disconnect creates a perfect storm for technical debt, especially as businesses adopt technologies and fast-track solutions without fully considering long-term implications.
The exponential complexity of AI — combined with the rush to deploy it — leads to challenges in scalability, maintenance, and integration. As businesses and developers entering the field become more reliant on AI support and “black box” systems, recent research notes, managing technical debt becomes increasingly difficult.
Many poorly established back-end systems make technical debt worse. Research from McKinsey found that suboptimal point solutions contribute to a never-ending cycle of ever-deepening technical debt.
Consider a database with three different ways of expressing the same idea, for example. This inconsistency creates a high level of variance within the system, leading to inefficiencies and confusion in processes.
The core issue is that these inconsistencies — left unresolved at the source — become a compounding factor as they ripple downstream. Over time, this unchecked complexity makes it harder to scale, maintain, or integrate the system, increasing both operational and technical challenges.
This highlights a key aspect of technical debt: ignoring foundational inconsistencies may seem manageable in the short term, but it ultimately creates a snowball effect of complexity that is harder and costlier to resolve later.
Identifying technical debt is only the first step. Tracking and measuring it ensures it doesn’t spiral out of control. Effective tracking starts with visibility, whether it’s through consistent code reviews to spot inefficiencies or centralized tools to monitor dependencies and maintenance costs.
“We have a designated ‘tech debt’ project within our project management tool,” says Tarun Eldho Alias, co-founder and CTO at Neem Inc. “All tech debt tasks are logged into this project, giving us a clear view of the current debt count. This visibility acts as a signal.” By creating a centralized system to track and monitor debt, teams can stay aware of its impact and prioritize accordingly.
To suss out where technical debt is building up in your organization, focus on metrics that highlight inefficiencies and areas for improvement, suggests Kevin Korte, serial board member, angel investor, and IT innovation and growth strategist.
Some metrics to track include:
These metrics provide a clear picture of where technical debt is hiding and help prioritize efforts to reduce it, ensuring a more streamlined and scalable infrastructure.
Tracking technical debt gives you visibility, but managing it requires action. Reducing technical debt starts with intentionality — like dedicating focused sprints to address it or refining workflows to eliminate inefficiencies.
Learn some ways you can manage and reduce technical debt build-up.
Refactoring involves restructuring code to improve its internal structure, readability, and maintainability, all without changing how it functions. It’s a vital strategy for managing technical debt and keeping systems scalable as the business grows.
When tech debt hits a critical level, a deliberate refactor can make all the difference. “At some point, the tech debt items in our pipeline had hit a peak critical level,” Tarun recalls. “To fight against this, we dedicated the next two-week cycle to tech debt reduction alone.” That focused sprint helped the development team clear blockers, improve code quality, and lay the groundwork for smoother progress.
Solutions like refactoring are time- and resource-intensive, and not something you can put off until the last minute. Dedicate time and resources within your development cycle to addressing tech debt and stabilizing the product, Tarun suggests. This is a surprisingly uncommon approach. Research from OliverWyman found that only a handful of companies allocate the recommended 15-20% of their budget to managing technical debt, with most letting it accrue until it hits critical levels — and then allocating 30-40% of their budget to fix the problem.
Develop a system for prioritizing technical debt among other obligations. “We're heavily biased towards shipping new features because feature work will increasingly map to business goals,” Tarun says. “That said, tech debt automatically gets prioritized if it’s causing a high rate of support requests or hindering product stability.” By treating it as a high-priority issue — especially when tied to customer pain points — you focus on solving the problems that matter most.
Find opportunities to improve efficiency and momentum. “The easiest way to tackle technical debt is to prioritize IT time savings and create a snowball effect that allows you to tackle the more significant issues later,” Kevin says.
Focus on areas where admins are bogged down by managing multiple systems. Tasks like identity management, log evaluation, or monitoring often eat up valuable time. Eliminating rarely used systems and archiving their data is a quick win that frees up resources for tackling larger upgrades.
Adopt rules to streamline your tech stack. “Reduce it to one system per workflow, and never introduce a new system unless there is a plan to decommission the system currently serving the same purpose,” Kevin says. Simplifying your tech stack not only minimizes complexity but also prevents the accumulation of redundant tools that create future headaches.
Where you can, bring entire workflows into one system. For instance, enabling sales reps to handle emails directly within a CRM reduces maintenance needs and boosts user satisfaction at the same time. “If the CRM update brings a new feature to do the whole workflow in one system, it would be worthwhile from a maintenance standpoint,” Kevin says. It’s a win-win that makes technical debt reduction feel like a meaningful improvement, not just a backend cleanup.
A lot of technical debt accrues because it’s hard to recognize that, sometimes, the best solution is to start over. Josh embraces a powerful mindset for recognizing when a failure is still a success: you’re not paying people to type code — you’re paying them to think. The real value of a team lies in their ability to understand the problem, learn from their work, and apply those lessons to create better solutions.
“In that mindset, it's much easier to make good decisions about technical debt,” Josh says, “and be less driven by unhelpful biases.” Instead, it encourages teams to see the bigger picture — using their insights to move forward with purpose and build systems that are sustainable and scalable.
This approach reframes technical debt as a strategic tool rather than a burden, allowing teams to innovate without getting trapped by short-term thinking. By valuing thought over lines of code, you can make decisions that drive real progress.
If you know where technical debt is most likely to accrue, you can develop processes to mitigate that outcome so that anyone, from in-house staff to external developers, can support your goals.
For example, Kevin suggests using Software-Bills-Of-Material (SBOMs) to reinforce behaviors that prevent users from creating new dependencies. SBOMs make the maintenance burden visible to developers and administrators, creating transparency around the effort required to support them. “Given that few people want to deal with extra documentation,” Kevin says, “they force employees to check whether there are alternatives already in use and if not think twice about whether adding a dependency is worth the extra administrative work.”
This approach subtly but effectively promotes thoughtful decision-making, helping organizations reduce unnecessary complexity and avoid piling on technical debt. The less appealing the shortcuts, the more deliberate the choices.
Re-platforming allows you to break free from the limitations of legacy systems, enabling your team to innovate without being weighed down by outdated infrastructure. Re-platforming not only eliminates inefficiencies but also opens the door to innovation, allowing teams to focus on building new features instead of maintaining legacy systems.
Re-platforming is a bold move, and not one to make lightly. For Instil, it was a necessary step to overcome the limitations of their legacy system. "You’re not just replacing a single component like a heart; you’re recreating an entire system to ensure every part works seamlessly," says Chris Lavender, Instil’s senior vice president of engineering. "Re-platforming was akin to performing an entire circulatory system transplant."
Instil’s existing platform couldn’t keep pace with evolving customer demands or the scale of their business. X-Team worked with Instil to re-platform their legacy system into a modern, cloud-based architecture, unlocking faster performance and slashing maintenance overhead. This transformation gave Instil the agility to adapt to customer needs and stay ahead in a fast-moving market.
Reducing technical debt is key to building scalable systems that can grow with your business — but it takes the right team to make it happen. You need developers who don’t just write code but actively contribute to your goals, delivering high-quality solutions that balance innovation with sustainability. With a strong, adaptable team, you can stay focused on creating transformative software while guaranteeing your technical foundation is ready for what’s next.
Whether you need one software engineer or dedicated teams, X-Team provides rigorously vetted developers that integrate seamlessly into your workflows. Our developers actively contribute to your goals, delivering results that align with your vision and scale as your needs evolve.
With X-Team, you can focus on building transformative software solutions while we handle the complexities of global hiring. Our human-driven approach ensures a streamlined process, reduced time-to-hire, and compliance with employment laws — empowering you to grow sustainably without disruption.
Find out how X-Team can meet your on-demand engineering needs.