Engineering teams often walk a fine line between shipping fast and building sustainably. Senior software engineer OLUMIDE PETER OBASA shares lessons on how to manage technical debt without sacrificing product velocity—showing that real speed comes from balancing quick wins with long-term stability….
Engineering teams are always trying to balance getting things done quickly and making sure they don’t create problems down the road. If they’re too slow, they might miss opportunities. If they’re too fast, they can end up with technical debt that makes future work really hard.
For companies that are growing fast, this is a constant issue that affects when things get released, how well systems scale, and how healthy the product is in the long run. The trick is to find a pace where speed doesn’t ruin maintainability.
In many projects, it’s tempting to just focus on speed. Deadlines, competition, and what customers want often push teams to take shortcuts. But if there’s no plan to deal with the mess that creates, those shortcuts can cause problems later. Olumide Peter Obasa, a senior software engineer, has seen this happen a lot. He’s learned to deal with it by being disciplined.
Olumide remembers an e-commerce migration with tons of traffic where the bosses really wanted a quick rollout to catch the holiday shopping season. The team decided to put off some code improvements and documentation to hit the launch date. It worked out well at first, with sales going up. But after the launch, they had to fix code complexity and integration problems before they caused major issues. He says that’s what managing debt well is all about: knowing what to put off and when to fix it.
Deadlines, competition, and what customers want often push teams to take shortcuts. But if there’s no plan to deal with the mess that creates, those shortcuts can cause problems later.
He thinks product velocity isn’t just about getting features out fast. It’s about keeping a steady pace over time. That means engineering leaders need to constantly check how much the accumulated debt costs compared to what the new releases are worth. Things like build times, bug fix rates, and how often incidents happen can show early on if structural problems are slowing things down.
He also says that talking about technical debt should be a normal part of product planning. In his teams, when they review the roadmap, they include debt fixes along with new features. This keeps engineering issues from being an afterthought and makes sure debt repayment lines up with business goals. He says it’s important for everyone to see this so they understand the trade-offs and agree on them, instead of just quietly dealing with the consequences.
For companies that are growing quickly, finding the right balance often comes down to being disciplined and communicating well. Sometimes you have to speed things up in the short term, but it should be on purpose and with a plan to pay it back later. Olumide believes that the best engineering cultures treat technical debt like a tool, not something to avoid completely. It’s something to manage strategically.
In the end, keeping a good product velocity means respecting both what the market needs right now and how solid the engineering foundation is. When teams get that right, they not only deliver faster now but also protect their ability to innovate later.
