Whether your organization operates like an entrepreneurial speed boat or an institutional cruise liner, you have a large anchor that, if not addressed, will someday remind you of its presence by yanking you into a harsh reality.
Technical debt is often the anchor that often lurks deep below an organization. Most development teams ignore code clean up because, well, it’s just not fun to do. But the more it is ignored, the nastier it gets when you try to adapt to the fast pace technical evolutions.
One of our core values is “failing fast”. This could mean that the faster we build, the more technical debt we create. We mitigate this by making our annual code clean up a priority. This allows us to keep moving fast and adapting to new technologies without fear of managing outdated, broken code.
This year, we have removed a large amount of old code and automation that we are no longer using (around 18% of our total code). That’s a BIG deal.