Tech debt is inevitable in innovation. The question isn’t whether your organization has it—but rather how well it’s managed. Proactive leaders strategically take on tech debt when necessary and implement processes to track, assess, and address it before it becomes a bottleneck.

Left unchecked, tech debt becomes an uncontrolled burden managed only by tribal knowledge. This creates single points of failure, makes organizations dependent on specific individuals, and leads to increasingly frequent and severe failures.

Key Signs of Unmanageable Tech Debt

1. System Fragility and Deployment Struggles

Once-reliable systems failing unpredictably is a classic sign of escalating tech debt. Early indicators include:

• Low deployment frequency and high change failure rates

• Difficulties in rolling out updates

• Frequent outages and firefighting that pulls engineers away from innovation

Engineering leaders should assess testing reliability to identify warning signs. One common issue is flaky tests—intermittent test failures that undermine deployment confidence. Unreliable tests lead to deployment failures, which delay releases, prevent upgrades, and frustrate customers.

2. Roadmaps That Lead Nowhere

A constantly shifting product roadmap without execution signals leadership indecision and a lack of engineering alignment.

To assess roadmap stability, ask:

• How often have product priorities changed in the past three years?

• How frequently has the team failed to deliver planned features?

• Do engineers feel “stuck” due to changing goals and abandoned work?

When decisions aren’t made—or are frequently reversed—teams lose trust in leadership, morale drops, and tech debt accumulates across processes, policies, and codebases.

3. Lack of Engineering Excellence

Engineering excellence—as defined by high-performing technology organizations — allows teams to take on and manage tech debt without compromising long-term stability.

A simple but telling indicator of tech debt (IOTD) is log discipline, which is how well teams document their work. Poor commit logs (e.g., vague notes like “update” or “fix”) strongly correlate with tech debt accumulation.

Bad commit messages signal that teams don’t have time to do things properly, which compounds inefficiencies. Conversely, enforcing structured commit logs tied to project tickets improves traceability and deployment confidence.

4. Operational Disruptions and Incident Frequency

• As tech debt accumulates, organizations see:

• Increased downtime and system failures

• Growing reliance on quick fixes and workarounds

• Worsening relationships between engineering and business teams

Tech debt that impacts operations leads to churn, inefficiencies, and lost business opportunities.

5. Engineer Burnout and Intuition

Engineers often sense when tech debt is out of control. Just as Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear emphasizes trusting instincts for personal security, engineers’ gut reactions to inefficiencies often indicate more profound issues.

If teams silently tolerate bad practices, it may be because they feel they lack executive support to address them. Creating a culture encouraging open discussion of tech debt is critical to preventing burnout.

Managing and Reducing Tech Debt

In 2006, Martin Fowler and Kent Beck introduced the “code smell” concept—superficial signs of deeper structural issues. Tech debt functions similarly. Over time, it becomes normalized, making it difficult for insiders to recognize.

Organizations can combat this by:

• Regularly evaluating tech debt at both the technical and organizational levels

• Implementing structured review processes to track and mitigate problem areas

• Using frameworks like Team Topologies to improve collaboration and reduce unnecessary complexity

Independent assessments can also help—outsiders can spot patterns that internal teams may overlook due to ingrained habits.

Is Your Organization Managing Tech Debt Effectively?

• Do you have structured processes for tracking and addressing tech debt?

• Are engineering teams empowered to raise concerns before issues escalate?

• Is tech debt assessed alongside business priorities to ensure sustainable growth?

EPSD Can Help

EPSD specializes in tech debt assessments and remediation strategies, helping organizations restore agility, improve deployment efficiency, and maintain operational resilience. You can read our take on Why Tech Debt Matters-And How To Pay It Off, and learn our approach to managing tech debt. Or, contact us today to take control.