When Should You Actually Worry About Tech Debt?

Technical debt is like that pile of laundry in the corner of your room. Yeah, it’s annoying, but it’s not going to kill you… unless you leave it there for too long.

So, what’s the signal to start worrying? Here’s what I look for:

Feature Development Slows Down

This is a big one. If your team is spending more time working around messy code than actually building new features, it’s a sign that technical debt is holding you back.

Let’s say you’re adding a new feature to a product, but it takes twice as long because you’re untangling a mess of spaghetti code. That’s a bad sign. At this point, the debt is costing you more time than it saved when you first cut corners.

1
// This function has grown over time and is hard to maintain
2
function processOrder(order) {
3
  if (order.type === "regular") {
4
    processRegularOrder(order);
5
  } else if (order.type === "rush") {
6
    applyRushFees(order);
7
    processRegularOrder(order);
8
  } else {
9
    throw new Error("Unknown order type");
10
  }
11

12
  // Update inventory, process payment, send confirmation, etc.
13
}

At first, this function worked fine. But as the project grew, it got more complex. Now, adding a new order type requires untangling a bunch of logic. It’s a sign that refactoring is due.

User-Facing Bugs Start Appearing

If your technical debt starts creeping into the user experience, that’s a serious problem. When your code is so brittle that it introduces bugs users notice, it’s time to take a step back.

I’ve worked on teams where we kept pushing new features without addressing the underlying technical debt, and eventually, users started seeing the cracks. Features would break for no apparent reason, or we’d roll out a new release only to have it introduce new bugs.

In this case, your technical debt isn’t just a dev problem anymore. It’s a business problem.

Scaling Issues

You might think, “Hey, we’ll deal with the debt when we’re bigger.” But scaling up is exactly when technical debt can bite you the hardest.

Imagine you’ve got 100 users. Everything works fine. Then you hit 10,000 users, and suddenly, your system can’t handle it because you made a ton of quick fixes along the way.

It’s not uncommon for performance issues to show up when your user base scales. That’s when you realize those quick, hacky solutions you put in place weren’t built to handle real growth.

Here’s an example of bad scaling logic:

1
// Example of technical debt causing scaling issues
2
function getAllUsers() {
3
  const users = db.query("SELECT * FROM users");
4
  // Fetches all users, which is fine with 100 but a disaster with 10,000+
5
  return users;
6
}

With 100 users, this might work okay. But as soon as your database grows, this becomes a nightmare. Refactoring to a paginated approach early on would have saved you time and headaches.

New Devs Can’t Get Up to Speed

Another sign you need to worry about technical debt: when new devs join the team and spend weeks just trying to understand the codebase. If your code is so convoluted that onboarding takes forever, it’s a red flag.

If new devs can’t figure out how things work because the code is filled with hacks and workarounds, you’re paying more than just time. You’re losing productivity and morale.

When It Can Be Ignored (For Now)

Now, I’m not saying you should drop everything and fix every little thing that’s wrong with your code. In fact, sometimes you can ignore technical debt for a while. Here are a few cases when it’s okay:

• You’re in early-stage development. When you’re building a product from scratch, speed is more important than perfection. Get it out there, get feedback, and then worry about cleaning up later. Just make sure you address the debt early enough.

• You need to meet a critical deadline. If you’re launching a feature that’s going to make or break the business, ship the feature. You can fix the debt once the deadline’s behind you.

• The debt is isolated. If you have one small section of your codebase that’s a bit hacky but isn’t affecting anything else, you can probably let it sit for a bit. Just don’t forget it’s there.

Pay technical debt down when it starts slowing you down, causing bugs, or keeping your team from being productive. But don’t panic about every little shortcut. Sometimes, shipping now and cleaning up later is the right move.