Best Practices for Refactoring to Reduce Tech Debt

I'm a Software Engineer at AWS, and here are 18 lessons I learned about refactoring code over the last 7 years in 60 seconds. It took me a lot of mistakes to learn these, so you don't have to: 1/ Never assume how code behaves → verify it with tests before changing anything 2/ Refactor in small, reversible steps → big rewrites break things. 3/ Don't change too much at once → reduce the blast radius 4/ Use AI as a refactoring partner → set guardrails, verify with tests, and iterate in small steps 5/ Test before refactors → they protect behaviour, not implementations. 6/ Keep it simple (KISS) → most complexity is accidental 7/ Fix design problems, not symptoms → good architecture prevents bugs 8/ Keep your code DRY → duplication multiplies risk 9/ Performance matters → refactoring isn't just structure, it's behaviour at scale 10/ Legacy code isn't scary → changing it blindly is 11/ Know your goal before refactoring → clarity beats activity 12/ Readable code beats clever code → readable code is easy to maintain in production 13/ Favour composition over inheritance → inheritance adds more complexity 14/ Patterns aren't always your friend → context matters more than theory 15/ Code is for humans → future readers are part of your system 16/ Refactoring is a habit → it's how systems stay healthy over time and avoid "broken windows" 17/ Messy code is a liability → technical debt compounds quietly. 18/ Refactor the code you touch most → optimise for where teams spend time. P.S. What else would you add? --- 🔖 Save this for the next time you're about to "just clean it up" ➕ Follow Abdirahman Jama for practical software engineering tips. #softwareengineering

I was a CTO at a company with a LOT of technical debt. Here's how I handled it. 1. I found someone in the org (non-exec) who cared about the issue and was organized. 2. We created a framework to rank our tech debt & built a common mini "language" to talk about it easily. 3. Next we documented the entire tech ecosystem & applied the framework to categorize it all. 4. We met with business stakeholders like Product & Sales to add their perspective into the ranking. 5. We grouped the tech debt into a) never touch, b) fix ASAP and c) fix incrementally. 6. We calculated the potential ROI on each item to help acquire funding to fix it. (This was difficult). 7. We built a plan for remediation and integrated the plan into the roadmap. 8. We created a tracking / monitoring best practice specifically for the tech debt remediation work. 9. We were pretty hardcore about reporting the ROI up to the CEO on all the tech debt fix work. 10. After a while of doing this tech debt remediation got baked into our organization. What's the big lesson? Anything can be done in an org if its important enough, you focus on it and you work hard to achieve it. Interesting in more content like this? Sign up for my free newsletter at https://buff.ly/4ccyrM0. #TechLeadership #softwaredevelopment #CTO

Most Salesforce orgs are drowning in technical debt and they don't even know it. Here's the brutal truth: McKinsey found that 10-20% of tech budgets get diverted to fixing technical debt. In Salesforce terms? That's your innovation and GTM budget going straight to firefighting instead of growth. The paradox is real, the more successful your Salesforce implementation, the more debt you likely accumulate. What does Salesforce technical debt actually look like? It's not just messy code. It's: -Unused fields cluttering your objects -Multiple triggers without frameworks -Legacy Process Builders and Flows you're afraid to touch -Hard-coded IDs breaking when you least expect it -Duplicate records making your reports unreliable The compound effect is brutal. Just like credit card debt, technical debt grows exponentially. Developers spend 23-42% of their time firefighting instead of innovating. Performance suffers. User adoption drops. Costs skyrocket. Here's your way out: The CLEAR Methodology 1. Classify - Categorize debt by type and urgency 2. List - Create a detailed inventory 3. Evaluate - Assess cost vs. business value 4. Act - Implement in prioritized phases 5. Review - Monitor and prevent new accumulation Start with quick wins: Remove unused fields. Consolidate duplicate reports. Clean inactive users. These high-impact, low-effort moves build momentum. 2025 game-changer: AI-powered tech debt management Agentforce needs solid clean data and efficient processes. AI tools can now automate code analysis, predict maintenance needs, and suggest refactoring, turning debt management from reactive to proactive. The shift-left principle applies here: The earlier you identify debt, the cheaper it is to fix. Don't wait until your org becomes unmaintainable. What's your next step? Start to audit your Salesforce org today to assess how bad it is. Technical debt doesn't have to kill your Salesforce ROI. With the right strategy, transform your org from a source of frustration into a competitive advantage. What's your biggest Salesforce technical debt challenge right now? Drop a comment and share: - The debt that's causing you the most pain - A solution that's worked for your team - What's holding you back from tackling it Let's turn this comment section into a technical debt solutions exchange. Your experience could be exactly what someone else needs to hear. #Salesforce #TechnicalDebt #SalesforceAdmin #SalesforceDeveloper #CLEAR

Technical debt is the cost of moving fast. When you cut corners to hit deadlines, you’re taking out a loan against your future productivity. Manage it before it owns you. Start by tracking your debt. Document what it is, why it’s there and what it’ll take to fix. Treat it like an actual loan with interest. Some debt won’t hurt you immediately, but the critical high interest stuff needs fixing fast. Maintenance isn’t optional. Set aside time every sprint to clean up. Think of it like brushing your teeth. Be honest about the trade-offs. If you’re shipping fast, tell the stakeholders what it’ll cost to clean up later. Be transparent about the development choices. Design modular systems that are easy to fix or swap out. Untangling spaghetti code is a waste of everyone’s time. Leave clear comments and TODOs where shortcuts are taken. Your future self (and your team) will thank you. Unchecked debt only grows. Revisit old systems regularly. Don’t chase perfection. Good enough and stable beats over-engineered every time.

Some organisations are drowning in technical debt. - A "5-minute fix" turns into 3 days of effort. - Adding new features feels like playing with a house of cards. - That "quick fix" from 2 years ago? Now it runs your entire business. - Every team meeting is a battle: Feature vs. Quality - Your team is getting slower by the month. - A tiny change takes weeks to test It doesn't have to be like this. And 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝗰𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀' 𝗳𝗮𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗅 Usually, it's the result of 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 and a misguided organizational development culture. Some root causes: - "Just make it work for the demo" - Fixing technical debt rarely gets priority - Immediate deadlines trump long-term code health - Leaders are rewarded for short-term results - Sales teams promising features without consulting engineering - Career advancement based on visible new features - Business leaders don't trust engineering time estimates - Engineers don't trust management's promises to "fix it later" Here are 5 clear, actionable recommendations: 1. Make system health a product feature, not just a technical problem. 2. Measure and demonstrate how technical debt is slowing down your business. 3. Include clean-up time in all feature estimates - no exceptions. 4. Never bypass quality checks, even under pressure. 5. Reward teams for preventing problems, not just fixing them. When technical health becomes part of your product strategy, your teams move faster, your systems stay reliable, and your business grows stronger. Best of all? Your developers come to work - excited to build great things instead of dreading the next fire. - proud of their work instead of apologizing for it. - energized to create instead of stressed about breaking things. "When did technical debt hit your organization the hardest? Share your story below - whether it's a horror story or a success story. 👇 P.S. In Sophie's and my forthcoming book, we share our experiences of how to develop good software sustainably. #devops #technology #qualit

Today one of my engineers asked if they should create a ticket for a small refactor that’s been bothering them. I laughed and said, “Come on, you know you don’t need permission to make code better.” But then I realized - this question tells a bigger story. How many teams are still treating refactoring like it needs executive approval? How many engineers are sitting on improvements because they’re waiting for the “right time” or the “refactor sprint”? Here’s what I’ve learned works way better than big planning sessions: The Boy Scout Rule in action: • Working on a feature? Clean up the code around it while you’re there • See something that’ll save the next person 10 minutes? Fix it • Find a confusing variable name? Rename it • Spot duplicated logic? Extract it No tickets. No meetings. No permission needed. The magic happens in those small, continuous improvements. Not in the mythical “technical debt sprint” that never comes. My only rule: if the refactor is bigger than the actual feature work, then we talk about it. Otherwise? Just make it better. The result? Our codebase stays healthier, engineers feel ownership, and we avoid those massive “everything is broken, we need to rewrite it” moments. Technical debt isn’t solved by grand gestures. It’s solved by dozens of small acts of care. Do your engineers feel empowered to improve code as they go? Or are they waiting for permission that might never come?

The 20% Rule for Technical Debt Here's my practical rule for handling technical debt without it overwhelming feature work: - If refactoring the "bad smell" takes 20% or less of your task time → do it. - If it's more than 20% → comment the code and add it to the backlog. This keeps us moving forward while gradually improving code quality. No permission needed for the small stuff, but we track the bigger items for proper prioritization. I also recommend teams allocate 20% of sprint capacity for tech debt and developer experience improvements. It's not rigid - some sprints might be 0%, others 50% - but it creates intentional space for improvement. The key insight: Technical debt isn't inherently bad. Unmanaged technical debt is. How do you balance feature delivery with keeping tech debt in check?