The Subtle Art of Intentional Technical Debt - DDD Adelaide 2025

Making bad decisions ... on purpose.

Many technical decisions involve balancing the ideal with the practical. Sometimes the “best” technical choice isn’t the right one, especially when factors like time to market, product validation, or resource constraints come into play. Like financial debt, technical debt isn't inherently bad. The nuance lies in how it's taken on, how it's managed, and what the repayment strategy looks like.

Some debt can be carefully managed as a strategic investment that accelerates short term growth without sacrificing long term velocity. While others, if left unchecked or poorly understood, accumulate interest that drains your team’s capacity and grinds development to a halt.

In this session, I will share real-world examples where I made tough calls. Sometimes we shipped imperfect code quickly to validate value, and other times we held back because the debt cost would have been too high for years to come. You will learn frameworks to help assess when to accept debt, how to communicate those decisions clearly, and how to plan for repayment before it becomes crushing.

Transcript

1. #DDDAdelaide / @DDDAdelaide
3. The Subtle Art of Intentional Technical Debt
4. Hola! I am Ryan Craig CTO @ Quoterite Previously at: ▪ HappyCo ▪ MaxMine ▪ Buddy/LIFX ▪ Accenture ▪ BlackStorm
5. What even is Technical Debt?
6. 6 Debt ▪ Something borrowed from someone else with some arrangement of it being paid back
7. 7 Monetary Debt □ Business Loan □ Home Loan □ Car Loan □ Credit Cards □ Afterpay
8. Afterpay is great if you like panic, regret and poor life choices. Steve
9. 9 Reckless Monetary Debt ▪ An unintentional and/or accidental arrangement where money is borrowed from another party with effects and repayment terms that are not adequately known, understood, or budgeted for, typically due to negligence, error, incompetence or ignorance
10. 10 Intentional Monetary Debt ▪ A conscious and strategic arrangement where money is borrowed from another party to achieve a desired outcome sooner, with agreed-upon effects and repayment terms that are known, understood, and budgeted for
11. 11 Intentional vs Reckless ▪ Unintentional and/or accidental vs conscious and strategic □ Blind acceptance is by definition reckless ▪ Effects □ You □ Lifestyle ▪ Repayment Terms □ Interest Rates □ Time Period □ Exit Clauses
12. 12 Monetary Technical Debt ▪ Money Effort ▪ Another Party Future Selves
13. 13 Reckless Technical Debt ▪ An unintentional and/or accidental arrangement where effort is borrowed from our future selves with effects and repayment terms that are not adequately known, understood, or budgeted for, typically due to negligence, error, incompetence or ignorance
14. 14 Intentional Technical Debt ▪ A conscious and strategic arrangement where effort is borrowed from our future selves to achieve a desired outcome sooner, with agreed-upon effects and repayment terms that are known, understood, and budgeted for
15. 15 Monetary vs Technical ▪ Effects □ You □ Team □ Company ▪ Repayment Terms □ Interest Rates □ Time Period □ Exit Clauses
16. 16 The “Framework” ▪ Assessment ▪ Agreement
17. 17 Assessment ▪ Effects □ Other projects □ Team □ Business ▪ Repayment Plan □ Exit clauses □ Interest rate □ Time period
18. 18 Agreement ▪ Parties □ Engineering □ Product Owners □ Leadership ▪ Agree □ Effects □ Repayment Plan
19. 19 Acronyms ▪ KISS □ Keep It Simple Stupid ▪ DRY □ Don’t Repeat Yourself ▪ WET □ Write Everything Twice ▪ TLA □ Three Letter Acronyms ▪ FLA □ Four Letter Acronyms / Five Letter Acronyms ▪
20. 20 Acronyms ▪ YAGNI □ You Ain’t Gonna Need It ▪ YAGNIY □ You Ain’t Gonna Need It Yet ▪ WDNIY □ We Don’t Need It Yet ▪ WDNINBPFWWBRIFD □ We Don’t Need It Now But Plan For What Would Be Required If We Did
21. Political Capital ▪ Brownie points ▪ Relationships aren't binary ▪ Wording matters ▪ Us vs Them -> We ▪ You promised -> We agreed 21
22. Story Time
23. CreatedAt • Suggestion ◦ YAGNI - Forget about the column • Assessment ◦ Effects ◦ Repayment Plan • Agreement ◦ Just Engineering right? 23
24. Proof of Concept (PoC) ▪ Throw 💩 at the wall - see what sticks ▪ Need it yesterday ▪ Have customers waiting ▪ PoC != Production Grade 24
25. 25 Hack Production Grade “OK”
26. The Hack The Assessment ▪ Quickest ▪ Dirtiest ▪ Effects □ Short term morale boost, long term drain ▪ Repayment Plan □ Exit clause - Delete it, delete it all □ High, compounding interest rate □ Very very short term 26
27. The Agreement ▪ Agree this is duct tape on spaghetti on bandaids ▪ Fixed short lifespan ▪ Needs to be rewritten ▪ Not kidding, it needs to be rewritten ▪ Cannot scale ▪ Good choice if we have low confidence 27 The Hack
28. There's nothing more permanent than a temporary hack. Kyle Simpson
29. The Assessment ▪ Not the quickest ▪ Not the dirtiest ▪ Some thought ▪ Effects □ Not our best work, could slow down some stuff ▪ Repayment Plan □ Exit clause - Needs works before scale □ Medium interest rate (hopefully fixed) □ Medium term (months) 29 It’s “OK”
30. The Agreement ▪ Refactoring is required ▪ Possibly switch framework ▪ Feature velocity will be lumpy until cleaned up ▪ It will scale - to a point ▪ Planning needed before work commences ▪ Good choice if we have some confidence 30 It’s “OK”
31. The Assessment ▪ Very much not the quickest ▪ Chef’s kiss quality ▪ Effects □ Morale boost, high quality, proud of our work ▪ Repayment Plan □ Exit clause - High cost due to time □ Low interest rate (hopefully fixed) □ Time Period - Very low 31 Production Grade
32. The Agreement ▪ Will take time, a lot of time ▪ Can’t start coding until we plan □ Future Features - Backlog + 3 Sprints ▪ Will result in good feature velocity ▪ Good choice if we have high confidence 32 Production Grade
34. 34 BURN IT ALL TO THE GROUND
35. 35 React Render Function function render(props) { return “<h1>Hello ${props.name}<h1>” } <MyComponent name={selectedUser.name} />
36. 36 React Render Function interface Props { name: string } function render(props: Props) { // intense calculation return “<h1>Hello ${props.name}<h1>” } <MyComponent name={selectedUser.name} />
37. 37 React Render Function interface Props { name: string companyName: string } function render(props: Props) { // intense calculation return “<h1>Hello ${props.name} from ${props.companyName}<h1>” } <MyComponent name={selectedUser.name} companyName={selectedUser.companyName} />
38. 38 React Render Function interface Props { userId: String companyId: String } function render(props: Props) { const name = userService.getUser(props.userId).name const companyName = companyService.getCompany(props.companyId).name // intense calculation return “<h1>Hello ${name} from ${companyName}<h1>” } <MyComponent name={selectedUser.userId} companyName={selectedUser.companyId} />
39. 39 React Render Function interface Props { user: User company: Company } interface User { name: string age: number updatedAt: string ...otherFields } function render(props: Props) { // intense calculation return “<h1>Hello ${props.user.name}<h1>” } <MyComponent name={selectedUser} company={selectedCompany} />
40. The Aftermath • Spend 1 month doing first pass of cleanup • Took 6 months to finish cleanup • Feature velocity was acceptable at launch and good post cleanup • Earnt me a bucket of political capital • Could have failed but cost was known and agreed upon 40
41. 41 Technical Debt
42. Takeaways • Technical Debt != Bad • Intentional vs Reckless • Framework ◦ Assessment ◦ Agreement 42
43. Clarity beats perfection. When everyone understands and agrees to the trade-offs, even the “wrong” choice can be the right move. Ryan Craig
44. Thanks! Any questions? You can find me at ▪ ryan@quoterite.com ▪ www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-craig1337
46. 46 Icons • Freepik - Flaticon • William Richon - Flaticon • Vecteezy.com Attributions