In today’s digital landscape, companies are rapidly building systems and applications at an unprecedented pace. With the proliferation of low-code platforms and agile methodologies, it’s never been easier to launch new apps, create interconnected systems, and respond to the growing demands of customers and stakeholders. However, the ease of building these systems often masks an uncomfortable truth: as more applications come online, the complexity and technical upkeep grows exponentially. Without proper planning and a sustainable strategy, the result is often technical debt that becomes unmanageable, leading to system failures, massive hiring needs, and burnout across the development teams.
The Hidden Cost of Easy Application Creation
The accessibility of modern tools and frameworks means anyone with a small budget and the right team can spin up a system in a short time. But what is rarely accounted for in these moments of innovation is the long-term maintenance required to keep those systems running smoothly. Every application and system needs to be updated, debugged, and optimized. As new features are added, these systems start to interlink in complex webs, creating dependencies that weren’t initially foreseen.
Over time, the technical upkeep required becomes staggering. Systems that were once easy to manage start to accumulate issues that take more resources to resolve than anyone expected. This is especially problematic when these applications begin to rely on each other in intricate ways, making it nearly impossible to shut one down or update it without causing failures in other areas. Dependencies create an unstable foundation where a small change in one system can create ripple effects across the entire ecosystem, causing unforeseen service disruptions and even catastrophic failures.
The Growing Burden of Maintenance
As these interconnected systems grow, maintenance demands escalate to the point where companies face a choice: either shut down applications completely to refactor, or hire an ever-increasing number of specialists just to keep the systems afloat. Even then, hiring more people brings its own set of problems. Knowledge transfer becomes an enormous challenge. With so many old systems in place, many of which have been developed with outdated technology or undocumented processes, the onboarding process becomes a labyrinth of learning. Keeping these systems operational requires teams with in-depth, historical knowledge, and even a massive influx of new talent cannot offset the burnout that often occurs among senior developers and maintainers.
The result is that many companies find themselves with too many systems, not enough talent to maintain them, and no realistic way of scaling back without significant consequences. The technical upkeep overwhelms even the most agile teams, and this is where many businesses reach the breaking point.
The False Promise of Agile and Continuous Improvement
Agile methodologies were designed with the promise of continuous improvement and iterative updates. In theory, they should allow teams to evolve their applications and systems regularly, keeping everything modern and functional. However, in practice, the reality is quite different. As projects run out of budget, the vision of continuous improvement falls apart. While Agile emphasizes adaptability, it fails to account for the sheer volume of updates and bug fixes required to keep a sprawling system infrastructure up to date.
Instead of steady improvement, companies are left with massive backlogs of technical debt that never seem to get resolved. With each new sprint, more features and systems are added, but the time and resources required for maintenance are deprioritized or underfunded. Continuous improvement becomes a hollow promise, and businesses are forced to choose between innovation and stability.
The Perils of System Interlinking and Dependencies
One of the most dangerous outcomes of unchecked system growth is the creation of tangled dependencies. Modern applications rarely exist in isolation. Instead, they are connected to databases, third-party services, internal tools, and other applications. Each of these dependencies forms a critical piece of the overall infrastructure, but it also represents a potential point of failure.
When one application is shut off or updated, it can trigger a chain reaction of failures throughout the network. These failures can be minor inconveniences or they can escalate into catastrophic outages, taking down entire services. Worse, because of the interconnectedness of modern systems, these issues are often difficult to diagnose and fix without extensive downtime and significant resource expenditure.
What Designers Can Do: A Role Beyond Aesthetics
Designers have a critical role to play in preventing the runaway complexity of systems. Beyond the aesthetics and user experience, designers must engage with systems thinking from the start of the project. This means considering not just the immediate needs of the system, but the long-term maintenance and scalability of the applications they are helping to create.
Designers should advocate for simplicity, pushing back against over-engineering and unnecessary features that will add complexity in the future. They should work closely with developers to create user flows and interfaces that prioritize functionality and clarity, reducing the risk of technical debt accumulating over time. Additionally, designers can help by mapping out how different systems and applications will interact, creating clear documentation that will aid in future maintenance and updates.
The Challenges for Dev Teams and the Impact on Web Development
For developers, the growing complexity of systems represents a significant challenge. Not only do they have to deal with constantly shifting priorities, but they are also expected to maintain old systems while developing new ones. This creates a situation where teams are stretched too thin, often leading to burnout.
The web development field as a whole is impacted by these challenges. The push to create more and more systems, often with little regard for long-term upkeep, has led to a culture where technical debt is almost inevitable. Dev teams are constantly playing catch-up, trying to fix issues that could have been avoided with more careful planning and foresight.
To mitigate this, development teams need to embrace a more holistic approach to system design and maintenance. This means setting realistic expectations with stakeholders about the long-term costs of building applications and advocating for dedicated time and resources to address technical debt as part of the project lifecycle.
Conclusion: The Way Forward
The current state of system development is unsustainable for many companies. The ease of creating new applications has outpaced the ability to maintain them, leading to technical debt, burnout, and systemic failures. To avoid collapse, businesses must reevaluate their approach to system growth, placing more emphasis on maintainability, interdependency management, and realistic long-term planning.
Designers, developers, and stakeholders must work together to create systems that can evolve sustainably, with maintenance and future scalability at the forefront of every decision. Only by addressing the root causes of technical debt can companies hope to avoid the collapse of their systems and the burnout of their workforce.