Controlling Technical Debt As Your Development Team Expands

As you onboard more developers, the complexity of your codebase intensifies and feature development speeds up. It’s tempting to push forward quickly, during periods of rapid growth, but this inevitably builds up technical debt. Technical debt represents the long-term price of quick fixes, such as omitting unit tests, copy-pasting snippets, or deferring refactoring. Not all debt is harmful, unaddressed debt reduces productivity, causes more production issues, and makes onboarding new developers harder.



The key to managing technical debt during team expansion is to build processes that make quality part of the rhythm of work, not an afterthought. Start by documenting the most critical areas of technical debt. Not every line of messy code needs fixing right away, but the most used components or often modified should be prioritized. Create a shared list that everyone can see and update. It enables faster onboarding through visibility and builds a culture of ownership.



When hiring, look for developers who care about code quality and are willing to advocate for it. Empower them to challenge shortcuts in planning sessions. Treat reviews as essential gatekeepers. Never merge without a second set of eyes. And use these reviews as opportunities to educate, not just to find bugs. Set clear guidelines for what constitutes acceptable code, нужна команда разработчиков clear, readable symbols, automated test requirements, inline comment guidelines—and hold the team accountable.



Allocate time explicitly for paying down debt. Most teams prioritize features exclusively. Instead, reserve a portion of every sprint—perhaps 15 to 20 percent—for refactoring, updating dependencies, writing tests, or improving documentation. This won’t delay features, it means shipping without erosion. Over time, the team will move faster because the codebase will be easier to navigate and modify.



Collaborative coding transfers expertise effectively. Pairing junior developers with experienced ones helps pass down institutional wisdom and reinforces quality standards immediately. It also surfaces technical debt early, because outsiders challenge invisible assumptions.



Finally, track your progress. Measure the cost of technical debt. Release cadence, and CI. If these indicators decline even as headcount rises, it means your debt is outpacing your cleanup. Reallocate effort where it’s needed most and foster collective responsibility.



It’s not about eliminating all debt, but managing it wisely. As your team expands, you gain more hands to build, but you also multiply the risk of inconsistency. By making quality a core value, you turn scaling into resilience.