Technical debt isn’t a monster that suddenly appears after a “bad sprint.” It’s a cumulative tax you pay on every future feature. It’s born in the small, seemingly harmless decisions we make every day. The shortcut taken, the confusing variable name, the test case we skipped “just this once.” The most effective strategy for reducing technical debt isn’t a massive refactoring project; it’s changing how you handle every single pull request.
Most teams treat the PR as the last checkpoint before merging. CI is green? Ship it. But this misses the point. The PR is the single best leverage point you have to prevent debt from ever taking root. It’s where code, context, and team standards collide. It’s a moment for collaboration and quality control, not just a rubber stamp.
The problem is, we’re all under pressure to move fast. So we let small things slide. “We’ll fix it later,” we say. We all know how that story ends. The “fix it later” ticket gathers dust in the backlog until the “small thing” becomes the root cause of the next production incident.
As a tech lead, your job isn’t to be a bottleneck, personally reviewing every line of code. It’s to build a system where quality is the default. And that system starts with transforming your PR process.
The PR: Your Best (and Most Overlooked) Tool Against Debt
Why is the PR process so critical? Because it’s the last human intervention point before a change hits your main branch. It’s where intent (“I’m fixing this bug”) meets implementation (“Here’s the code”). This is your moment to ensure the implementation doesn’t create three new problems while solving the original one.
Reactive debt management—the “refactoring sprint” or “cleanup week” is a sign of a broken process. It’s a necessary evil sometimes, but it’s expensive and treats the symptom, not the cause. A proactive approach, centered on the PR, stops the bleeding. You’re not just paying down old debt; you’re stopping the creation of new debt.
Setting the Standard (Without Becoming the Bottleneck)
Your role as a lead is to be the editor-in-chief, not the sole author. You define what “good” looks like and empower your team to enforce it. If you’re the only one who can approve a PR, you’re not leading; you’re blocking. The goal is to create a shared understanding of quality so that any developer on the team can give a review that’s just as effective as yours.
This means moving from subjective feedback to objective standards. “I don’t like this” isn’t helpful. “This function exceeds our agreed-upon complexity limit of 10, let’s break it down” is actionable.
Tactical Approaches for Reducing Technical Debt in PRs
Let’s get practical. How do you turn this philosophy into a process that actually works day-to-day?
1. Establish Clear, Objective PR Review Guidelines
Create a simple document (in your repo’s CONTRIBUTING.md is a great spot) that outlines what a good review looks like. Don’t write a novel. Focus on creating “review lanes” so people know what to look for.
- Correctness: Does this code do what it’s supposed to do? Does it solve the problem outlined in the ticket? Does it introduce any new bugs or edge cases?
- Maintainability & Readability: Can a new developer understand this code in six months? Are the variable names clear? Is the logic straightforward or a plate of spaghetti? Is it consistent with existing patterns in the codebase?
- Performance & Security: Is this introducing an N+1 query? Is it handling user input safely? Are we adding a dependency with known vulnerabilities?
- Testing: Do the tests actually validate the new logic? Are they testing implementation details (brittle) or behavior (robust)? Is there adequate coverage for critical paths?
This isn’t a checklist for every PR, but a guide for reviewers. It turns a vague “review this” request into a targeted assessment.
2. Focus on Incremental Refactoring
The “Boy Scout Rule” is your best friend: Always leave the code better than you found it.
If a developer is working in a particularly messy part of the codebase to fix a bug, empower them to clean up the immediate area. They don’t need to refactor the entire module. Just rename a few confusing variables. Extract a complex condition into a well-named function. Add a missing test case.
This has to be explicitly encouraged. If your team is measured only on story points, they will never do this. You need to make it clear that small, incremental improvements are part of the job, not “gold plating.” Celebrate these small wins in your team chats.
3. Automate Everything You Can
Human reviews should focus on logic, architecture, and intent. Let the robots handle the rest. Your CI pipeline is your first line of defense.
- Linters and Formatters: The endless debates about tabs vs. spaces or trailing commas? End them. Pick a standard, put it in a config file, and have the CI enforce it. No more style-based arguments in PR comments.
- Static Analysis: Tools like SonarQube or CodeClimate can automatically flag code complexity, potential bugs, and security vulnerabilities right in the PR. This provides objective, non-confrontational feedback.
- Test Coverage Gates: Set a reasonable threshold for test coverage on new code. If a PR drops the coverage, the build fails. This makes testing non-negotiable.
- Dependency Scanning: Use tools like Snyk or Dependabot to automatically check for vulnerabilities in the libraries you’re adding or updating.
Automation turns subjective style arguments into objective build failures. It’s the easiest win you can get.
How to Give a Good Review (and Avoid Blocking the Sprint)
A good review process finds the balance between quality and velocity. The goal is to improve the code, not to win an argument or show how smart you are.
Create a Minimum Viable Checklist in Your PR Template
Don’t make it a bureaucratic nightmare. A few simple checkboxes in your PR description template can work wonders.
PR Template Example:
### Description
A brief summary of the changes.
### How to Test
Steps to manually verify the changes.
---
### Author's Checklist
- [ ] I have updated the documentation.
- [ ] My changes are covered by tests.
- [ ] I have run this locally and it works as expected.
### Reviewer's Checklist
- [ ] The logic is sound and solves the problem.
- [ ] The code is readable and maintainable.
- [ ] This doesn't introduce any obvious performance or security risks.
Distinguish Blockers from Suggestions
This is critical. Not all feedback is created equal. Use prefixes to clarify your intent:
- [Blocker]: “This must be fixed before merge. Example: [Blocker]: This new database query is missing an index and will lock the table.“
- [Suggestion]: “I think this could be better, but I’ll leave it up to you. Example: [Suggestion]: You could use a `map` here instead of a `forEach` to make it more functional. Your call.“
- [Question]: “I don’t understand this part. Example: [Question]: Why did we need to change this line? I’m missing some context.“
This simple convention drastically reduces friction and lets authors prioritize what needs to be fixed now vs. what can be considered for later.
Common Anti-Patterns That Create Debt in Reviews
Watch out for these behaviors in your team (and yourself):
- The “LGTM” Rubber Stamp: Seeing a green build and approving without actually reading the code. This signals that quality isn’t valued.
- The Mega-PR: A 3,000-line PR is unreviewable. It will get a superficial review because nobody has four hours to unpack it. Enforce small, focused PRs.
- The Subjective Style War: Arguing over variable names that don’t violate any documented standard. This is what linters are for.
- The “Fix It Later” Comment: The most dangerous phrase in engineering. If something is truly broken, fix it now. “Later” never comes. If it’s a bigger piece of work, that’s fine, but the current PR shouldn’t be making the problem worse.
It’s All About Culture
Ultimately, tools and processes can only get you so far. Reducing technical debt is a cultural challenge. You need to foster an environment where developers feel empowered to push back on unrealistic deadlines that compromise quality, where they have time budgeted for small refactors, and where constructive criticism is seen as a way to learn, not a personal attack.
Start small, then refine and evolve.
