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Technical debt has always been part of building software, but the pressure on modern engineering teams has never been higher. AI is reshaping delivery speed, product cycles are compressing, customer expectations keep rising, and platforms must evolve faster without losing stability. Every CTO feels the tension between pushing innovation forward and keeping the foundation strong enough to support it.
So how do top technology leaders keep momentum high without watching quality crumble? How do they protect long-term platform health while still shipping the new ideas customers expect?
To find out, we asked six leading CTOs to share their best advice for balancing innovation with technical debt in a practical, sustainable way. Their answers highlight a consistent theme. Real innovation thrives when visibility, discipline, and intentional investment guide how teams evolve their systems. From opportunity-based refactoring to clear architectural principles, from protecting innovation capacity to reframing debt as platform development, these leaders show how smart engineering cultures handle both sides of the equation.
Here are their insights.
Maria Hall
CTO
Eletive
1. Let innovation drive improvement – smart development reduces debt naturally
Innovation and technical debt aren’t opposites. In fact, the right kind of innovation often resolves existing debt along the way. When we introduce modern ways of working, leverage AI, or update core flows, the codebase tends to improve organically if you make code health a non-negotiable part of how you ship. The key is to prioritize innovation that not only adds value but also reduces complexity over time.
2. Build improvement into the flow – fix what you touch
Technical debt shouldn’t only live as an isolated backlog item. The most effective approach is “opportunity-based refactoring”: whenever a team is already working in a part of the system, they improve whatever makes sense while they’re there. It doesn’t need to be big — small cleanups, dependency updates, or modular simplifications add up. This way, debt decreases continuously without slowing down innovation.
3. Create clear principles for which debt is acceptable – and which isn’t
Not all technical debt is harmful. Sometimes taking shortcuts is exactly the right thing to do when validating an idea quickly, especially for product experiments. What matters is having shared principles that clarify which kinds of debt are deliberate choices and which must be addressed immediately.
Rikard Birath
CTO
Grade
1. Prioritise technical debt to unlock Innovation
Start by clearly defining and prioritising your technical debt so the engineering organisation maintains a shared understanding of what truly needs attention. Without this structure, tech debt becomes overwhelming, which drains motivation and can slow both innovation and feature delivery. By making the debt visible, scoped, and actionable, you empower teams to plan proactively and create space for innovation instead of feeling buried by legacy issues.
2. Treat innovation and technical debt as complementary forces
Avoid framing technical debt and innovation as opposites. Continually modernising the platform is essential to staying agile, and the best opportunities often arise when new feature development intersects with areas of technical debt. Encourage teams to view themselves as key stakeholders in the platform, alongside customers and management, for example, so modernisation becomes part of the company’s value creation rather than an afterthought.
3. Use architectural principles to guide innovation with discipline
Leverage clear architectural principles, such as “API-first,” “Containerised by default,” “Secure by design,” or “Prefer shared libraries over duplicated code”, to ensure innovation pushes the platform in the right direction. These guidelines help teams experiment confidently while minimising unintentional debt. When innovation is anchored in strong architectural foundations, it strengthens the platform instead of adding complexity.
Thorbjörn Frisk
Chief Technology Officer
Bannerflow
1. Make Technical Debt Visible and Measurable — to Create Room for Innovation
Innovation thrives on speed and agility — but that’s impossible if your teams are stuck navigating a crumbling foundation. To avoid this trap:
• Treat technical debt as a first-class citizen in planning.
• Use clear metrics like code health, build times, and deployment frequency to surface problem areas.
• Track and prioritize foundational work side-by-side with product development.
When technical debt is visible and managed, you unlock the ability to innovate consistently — especially in rapidly evolving spaces like AI and automation.
2. Set Time-Boxed Budgets for Tech Debt — and Protect Innovation Space
The secret isn’t choosing between innovation and maintenance — it’s being deliberate about both. I recommend:
• Reserving a fixed percentage of dev capacity (e.g., 20% – don’t forget to track/measure it!) for platform work: refactoring, improving developer experience, and upgrading infrastructure.
• Running time-boxed innovation sprints or setting aside capacity for exploring new ideas, technologies, or AI prototypes.
• Including both in a single transparent roadmap — no split priorities, no shadow backlogs.
Just as tech debt should be measured and addressed, innovation should be funded and tracked — ideally by the value it delivers to customers.
3. Make It a Team Sport — and Reframe It as Building the Future
3. Make It a Team Sport — and Reframe It as Building the Future
Calling it “technical debt” rarely inspires. Instead, shift the conversation:
• Talk about building a sustainable tech platform for the future.
• Highlight how today’s foundational work enables tomorrow’s breakthroughs — whether it’s faster delivery, AI-powered features, or new business capabilities.
• Anchor decisions in outcomes: “If we invest here, we cut build time by 30%, freeing time to innovate.”
Everyone wants to be part of the future. No one wants to “pay off debt.” Change the language, and you change the level of engagement — from top leadership to every team.
Charles Beaumont
Founder/CTO
TheyDo
1. Build a product investment strategy.
Be explicit about how you invest your team’s resources. Define upfront what percentage goes into new features versus resolving tech debt. Put both on one roadmap. When tech debt lives in a separate backlog, it loses every prioritization fight. When it sits next to features, you can make real tradeoffs. We commit the percentage upfront, so the decision is already made.
2. Not all debt needs to be paid, some of it naturally expires.
Be intentional about where you create it and where you resolve it. Your tolerance for debt depends on how you’re evolving that part of your product. When you’re exploring something new, move fast and accept shortcuts. When you’re expanding proven value, tighten up. When you’re optimizing mature systems, pay it down. Not all code deserves the same investment.
3. Only design for one order of magnitude of growth.
Premature optimization is one of the largest sources of tech debt, so simplify to accelerate. Don’t build complex systems for problems you don’t have yet. We only build for 10x current usage. If you have 100 users, build for 1,000. Not 100,000. When you actually hit that scale, you’ll know more about what you really need.
Laurens van Alphen
CTO
Kogna
Balancing innovation with technical debt feels like maintaining speed while keeping the machine tight. Both matter, and the trick is to handle them with the same calm discipline.
Start by making debt easy to see. When people understand where the friction sits, they make better choices. Show the slow builds, the brittle areas, the recurring incidents, the manual work that keeps piling up. Visibility turns abstract complaints into concrete priorities.
Give the team safe places to try things. Use feature flags, isolated environments, cloned datasets, or any setup that lets ideas be tested without touching the core. When experiments can run without risk, creativity increases, and the main system stays stable.
Set a basic quality and security floor. Lightweight checks, standardised access, simple automation, and a few clear rules keep things tight without slowing teams down. These guardrails prevent surprises and reduce the cost of change over time.
When you approach innovation and debt with a steady rhythm, both become part of the same forward motion.
Freddy Bang
Chief Technology Officer
Zensai
How CTOs Can Balance Innovation and Technical Debt Without Slowing Growth
Innovation is thrilling. Technical debt may lack the allure of new features, but ignoring it while chasing shiny ideas is like building a skyscraper on a shaky foundation. Eventually, it will cost you more than you saved. At Zensai, we’ve learned that balancing these two forces isn’t about compromise. It’s about strategy.
Here are three practical ways to keep innovation flowing while managing technical debt effectively:
1. Make Technical Debt Visible and Prioritize by Impact
Not all technical debt is equal. Some hurt customers directly, some slow developers, and some mainly affect developer satisfaction without significant business impact. Treat them differently:
Customer-facing debt: Poor performance or inconsistent UI/UX silently erodes retention.
Developer experience debt: Slow pipelines and clunky environments waste time that could be spent on innovation.
Nice-to-have debt: Items that improve developer happiness but don’t move the business needle.
Action: Create a debt register and tag each item by impact: Business Value, Customer Experience, Developer Experience. Then prioritize accordingly.
2. Prioritize Performance Debt—It’s a Revenue Killer
If technical debt affects application performance, it’s not just a technical issue. It’s a revenue issue. Poor performance drives churn, and churn kills ARR. Make this non-negotiable:
Product teams should treat performance debt as top priority.
Link debt items to metrics like customer retention and ARR impact so leadership understands the stakes.
3. Combine Innovation with Debt Reduction
Innovation and debt reduction can work together:
When planning new features, ask:
“Can we eliminate some technical debt during implementation?”
If a debt item requires massive effort and you don’t have a dedicated team, piggyback on innovation projects to tackle it incrementally.
Encourage engineers to think creatively. Sometimes the best innovation is simplifying complexity.
Example: If you’re redesigning a feature, refactor legacy code in the same sprint to reduce future complexity.
Closing Thought
Balancing innovation and technical debt isn’t about slowing down. It’s about building sustainable velocity. Visibility, prioritization, and smart integration are the keys to growth that lasts.
Start by auditing your technical debt today. Your future innovation depends on it.
