Balancing Tech Debt Through App Modernization
Learn how app modernization can reduce tech debt burdens while increasing focus on innovation and business growth.
As the pace of tech evolution accelerates, tech debt inevitably accumulates. While it’s easy to push off addressing legacy systems, the cost of maintaining outdated apps only grows over time.
I’ve seen firsthand how the weight of these decisions can hinder innovation and slow down teams. The solution isn’t simply to rewrite everything from scratch.
It’s about strategic modernization—balancing updating existing systems and preserving their value
In today's newsletter, we'll explore:
The hidden cost of tech debt
Ways to manage tech debt
Success stories of reducing tech debt through app modernization
Let’s get started!
The hidden cost of tech debt
“Left unchecked, technical debt will ensure that the only work that gets done is unplanned work!”
― Gene Kim, The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
Technical debt quietly limits an organization’s potential. Over 92% of organizations are burdened with technical debt, leading to significant consequences: 80% experience delayed business-critical projects, and 79% face escalating software development costs.
McKinsey's survey provides additional insight. 30% of CIOs estimate that tech debt consumes 20-40% of their technology estate's value.
This is not just about keeping systems running—it's about positioning your organization to succeed in a fast-changing digital world.
The choice is clear: address tech debt proactively or risk becoming obsolete.
Ways to manage tech debt
Organizations can reduce the impact of tech debt and create new opportunities by tackling it strategically. Here are six practical strategies:
#1. Track your technical debt
Measuring metrics like defect ratios, code complexity, and Technical Debt Ratio (TDR) provides a clear view of the debt’s extent. For instance, high TDR values highlight cost inefficiencies, while monitoring code quality ensures maintainability and identifies areas needing attention.
#2. Rethink software development strategy
Agile methodologies allow teams to iterate incrementally, integrating feedback with each cycle. This approach reduces debt accumulation and fosters continuous improvement, balancing delivery speed and quality.
#3. Leverage data analytics
Data-driven insights empower better decision-making. Track flaws, fixes, performance metrics, and operational disruptions to identify root causes and strategically reduce debt over time.
#4. Automate testing
Automation minimizes manual effort, accelerates testing, and improves reliability. Reducing post-release fixes and improving productivity lowers costs while ensuring higher quality.
#5. Refactor source code
Gradually refactoring code during sprints keeps legacy systems up-to-date and manageable. This approach adapts to new technologies without a complete rebuild, supporting agile methods for long-term upkeep.
#6. Restructure architecture
A lack of proper software architecture leads to technical debt, which companies pay through restructuring. Therefore, creating a flexible architecture, such as microservices, enables scalability and reduces technical debt.
Learn more about other ways of managing technical debt here.
How can application modernization reduce technical debt?
Application modernization helps fix technical debt by updating old systems. It includes replacing large, outdated systems with smaller, scalable ones and gradually improving old code for easier maintenance.
Studies have shown that organizations addressing technical debt through modernization can save up to 39% in operational costs as they move from legacy systems to more efficient solutions. Additionally, they can eliminate upto 37% of redundant applications, which can streamline operations and improve efficiency.
How did Twitter Ads and Spotify address tech debt challenges through application modernization?
#1. Modernizing at scale: how Twitter Ads overcame tech debt?
As Twitter Ads grew to handle billions of interactions and real-time data, technical debt became a significant challenge. The system initially processed data using local centers and Hadoop, but it became expensive and inefficient over time. Long-running data jobs frequently fail, creating reliability problems for the team. These challenges made it difficult for the team to develop new features and quickly respond to changing user trends.
Twitter Ads solved its data processing challenges by moving to Google Cloud. They switched from local systems to cloud services like BigQuery and Apache Beam. This migration made data pipelines faster, more reliable, and easier to manage. By decoupling the components and using cloud-based tools like Pub/Sub, they could scale their data handling to meet growing demand.
Twitter Ads simplified its technology systems by moving from outdated infrastructure to cloud-based solutions. It allowed for faster development of new features and more efficient workflows.
#2. Modernizing Spotify: Tackling tech debt for seamless experiences
Spotify faced difficulties growing and improving its technology as the company expanded. The web player and desktop app, built on distinct stacks, led to inefficiencies and accessibility gaps, slowing feature delivery. The tight coupling of the web player with servers for authentication and data processing, alongside incompatible playback systems, compounded the complexity.
To tackle this, Spotify re-architected its front end, adopting React and TypeScript-based APIs to abstract platform-specific dependencies. By centralizing functionality in platform-agnostic APIs exposed via React Hooks, they enabled a unified, high-performance UI across the web and desktop.
Spotify improved its technology, which helped it develop new features faster. They added offline mode and lyrics in just one year and created a better desktop app. These changes made the app more user-friendly and helped the company work more efficiently.