Managing technical debt in SaaS products

Balancing speed and quality

Technical debt is inevitable in fast-moving SaaS development. Here's how I manage it effectively.

I categorise debt into three buckets: critical (security/stability), important (performance/maintainability), and nice-to-have (code beauty). We tackle them in that order.

Every sprint includes 20% time for debt reduction. This prevents debt from accumulating to dangerous levels. Small, consistent improvements beat massive refactoring projects.

I track debt explicitly. A simple spreadsheet lists known issues, their impact, and effort required. This makes debt visible and helps prioritise what to fix first.

Automated testing is non-negotiable. Even in MVP sprints, core functionality gets test coverage. This safety net lets us refactor confidently later.

Code reviews catch debt early. Every pull request gets reviewed for potential issues. Fixing problems when code is fresh is 10x easier than months later.

The result is sustainable development speed. We can still move fast after year two because we've been managing debt from day one. Short-term shortcuts don't become long-term problems.