How to Balance New Features and Tech Debt Reduction

Business value vs. platform health? It’s not either-or. It’s a portfolio strategy. Over the years, I’ve seen companies take on massive multi-year re-platforming efforts. These usually succeed in launching a shiny new platform...But at what cost? 1️⃣ The business is often set back significantly during the transition. 2️⃣ The new platform rarely delivers the features the business actually needed when the effort was launched - requirements were lost in translation, subject matter experts left and knowledge lost, context was missing. 3️⃣ Worse, the team stopped learning. No customer feedback for years, no iteration, and by the time the platform is done, the market has changed. On the flip side, I’ve also seen what happens when platform health is ignored: Customer satisfaction is impacted with more disruptions and incidents. Tech debt grows while the work slows down. Less productivity from engineering and product teams. Morale dips. Velocity drops. Less experimentation. Growth stalls as competitors move faster and better. That’s why I approach this challenge like a portfolio. 📊 Most of the investment should go toward delivering business value. That should NEVER stop. 🔧 But 20–30% must be consistently allocated to platform modernization, platform health, engineering excellence, and reducing technical debt with consistent incremental delivery Neglecting that part of the portfolio doesn’t just build up future risk — it quietly erodes your ability to move fast and deliver impact. It's not a tug-of-war between tech and business. It’s about investing wisely in both — today and for the long run.

You’re an engineering leader, a staff+ engineer, or a product owner who sees the cost of technical debt every day. But when you try to advocate for time to fix it, execs either nod vaguely or change the subject. You’re not wrong—you’re just not being heard. Here’s why that happens: When you say "tech debt," they hear "not urgent." When you say "refactor," they hear "money pit." When you say "architecture," they hear "someone else’s problem." But the reality is: Tech debt slows down your ability to ship new features. It increases the risk of outages or missed SLAs. It silently drives away your best engineers. So how do you make them care? I coach engineering and product leaders on how to frame technical priorities in business language—so they get the time, resources, and executive backing they need. Here’s the approach: Tie tech debt to business risk or cost: "This feature now takes 3x longer to ship because of X." Use executive language: Talk time-to-market, reliability, developer retention—not code quality. Frame it as an investment: "Fixing this sets us up for velocity in Q3." Make tradeoffs visible: "If we don’t fix this now, we’ll miss Y opportunity." Track real pain: Show data on cycle time, error rates, or turnover. Don’t wait for permission. If your leadership still sees tech debt as an engineering problem, it’s time to change the story you’re telling. This is where I come in. I help technical leaders communicate with power—bridging the gap between strategy and systems. Whether through coaching or fractional partnership, let’s get your org moving faster and smarter. #technicalleadership #engineeringmanagement #productstrategy #executivecommunication #startupgrowth

The 20% Rule for Technical Debt Here's my practical rule for handling technical debt without it overwhelming feature work: - If refactoring the "bad smell" takes 20% or less of your task time → do it. - If it's more than 20% → comment the code and add it to the backlog. This keeps us moving forward while gradually improving code quality. No permission needed for the small stuff, but we track the bigger items for proper prioritization. I also recommend teams allocate 20% of sprint capacity for tech debt and developer experience improvements. It's not rigid - some sprints might be 0%, others 50% - but it creates intentional space for improvement. The key insight: Technical debt isn't inherently bad. Unmanaged technical debt is. How do you balance feature delivery with keeping tech debt in check?