Production Engineering: Technical Debt — When to Fix, When to Ignore

Introduction:

Technical debt is usually discussed as something to eliminate. Teams talk about “cleaning it up,” “paying it down,” or “refactoring it away.” In reality, technical debt is unavoidable — and sometimes even useful.

The real challenge isn’t whether technical debt exists. It’s knowing which debt is dangerous, which debt is tolerable, and which debt should be ignored for now.

Production engineering lives in that gray area.

Not All Technical Debt Is Equal:

Treating all technical debt the same leads to bad decisions.

Some debt slows development slightly but is stable and well understood. Other debt quietly increases risk, fragility, or operational load. The difference isn’t in how “ugly” the code looks — it’s in how it behaves under change and failure.

Good teams learn to distinguish between cosmetic debt and structural debt.

Debt That Breaks During Incidents Is High-Interest:

The most dangerous technical debt reveals itself during outages.

Brittle dependencies, unclear ownership, and hidden coupling all turn minor issues into prolonged incidents. If a piece of debt makes recovery slower or diagnosis harder, it’s charging interest every time something goes wrong.

This kind of debt deserves attention early, even if it doesn’t affect feature velocity.

Debt That Blocks Change Is More Expensive Than Debt That Looks Bad:

Messy code can often be worked around. Rigid systems cannot.

When small changes require touching many components, coordinating multiple teams, or navigating unclear behavior, debt has crossed a threshold. At that point, delivery slows not because of complexity alone, but because of fear.

Debt that prevents safe change compounds faster than debt that merely offends aesthetics.

Some Debt Is Strategic — and That’s Okay:

Not all debt is accidental.

Teams sometimes accept debt deliberately to ship faster, validate assumptions, or meet deadlines. This is a reasonable trade-off when the debt is visible, scoped, and reversible.

The problem isn’t taking on debt. It’s forgetting why it was taken and assuming it can be ignored indefinitely.

Why Ignoring Debt Can Be the Right Choice:

Fixing debt has opportunity cost.

If a system is stable, rarely touched, and well understood, refactoring it may introduce more risk than value. Some debt simply doesn’t justify the disruption of fixing it.

Production engineers learn to leave sleeping systems alone unless there’s a clear reason to wake them.

Signals That Debt Has Become Urgent:

Teams often sense when debt needs attention before they can articulate it.

Common signals include:

• frequent regressions in the same areas
• long recovery times during incidents
• growing fear of deployments
• increasing reliance on a few experts
• workarounds replacing fixes

These are operational signals, not style critiques.

Debt Should Be Owned, Not Just Tracked:

Tracking technical debt without ownership changes little.

Effective teams assign responsibility. Someone understands the debt, knows its risks, and can explain when it should be addressed. This turns debt from an abstract concern into a managed risk.

Ownership doesn’t mean immediate action. It means informed choice.

Refactoring Without Clear Outcomes Is Also Debt:

Fixing technical debt isn’t automatically beneficial.

Large refactors without clear goals often introduce new complexity, regressions, and delays. “Cleaning up” without a specific problem to solve can create more debt than it removes.

Good refactoring is targeted. It improves a known weakness, not everything at once.

Technical Debt Is a Production Concern, Not Just a Code Issue:

Debt affects reliability, operability, and team health.

It influences how quickly incidents are resolved, how safely systems evolve, and how confident engineers feel making changes. Treating debt as a purely technical concern misses its broader impact.

Production engineering reframes technical debt as a risk management problem.

Conclusion:

Technical debt isn’t something to eliminate. It’s something to manage.

Fix debt that increases operational risk, slows recovery, or blocks change. Ignore debt that’s stable, understood, and unlikely to be touched. Accept some debt strategically — but never accidentally.

The goal isn’t a perfect system. It’s a system that can be changed, operated, and trusted over time.