PagerDuty's Journey to Solving Technical Debt Problems

PagerDuty, a leader in digital operations management, faced significant technical debt as it rapidly expanded its platform and user base.

This accumulation of technical debt threatened to slow down innovation, degrade performance, and increase maintenance costs.

We explore how PagerDuty recognized and addressed its technical debt, the strategies implemented, and the outcomes achieved.

Understanding PagerDuty's Technical Debt

Rapid Expansion and Complexity

As PagerDuty grew, it continually added new features and integrations to meet customer demands. This rapid expansion led to:

• Complex Codebase: The addition of numerous features without sufficient refactoring increased the complexity of the codebase.
• Interdependencies: Tight coupling between components made the system fragile and difficult to change.

Monolithic Architecture

Initially, PagerDuty employed a monolithic architecture which, while easier to manage in the early stages, became a bottleneck as the platform scaled:

• Scalability Issues: The monolith structure hindered the ability to scale specific parts of the application independently.
• Deployment Challenges: Deployments became riskier and more time-consuming, as changes to one part of the system could inadvertently affect other areas.

Insufficient Automated Testing

In the rush to deliver new features, comprehensive automated testing was often neglected:

• Limited Test Coverage: Lack of thorough automated tests increased the risk of introducing bugs during deployments.
• Manual Testing: Reliance on manual testing was time-consuming and prone to human error.

Impact of Technical Debt

Slowed Development Velocity

Technical debt slowed down development as engineers spent more time understanding and navigating the complex codebase, fixing bugs, and dealing with unexpected issues.

Increased Operational Costs

Maintaining a system burdened by technical debt led to higher operational costs, with more resources allocated to firefighting issues rather than developing new features.

Reduced Innovation

The need to address technical debt diverted focus and resources away from innovation, limiting PagerDuty’s ability to rapidly respond to market demands and customer needs.

Strategies for Solving Technical Debt

Transition to Microservices

One of the critical strategies PagerDuty employed was transitioning from a monolithic to a microservices architecture:

• Service Decomposition: Breaking down the monolith into smaller, independent services allowed for better scalability and maintainability.
• Clear Boundaries: Well-defined APIs ensured clear boundaries between services, reducing interdependencies and simplifying integration.

Enhanced Testing and Automation

PagerDuty invested in improving its testing and automation capabilities:

• Automated Testing: Expanded the automated test suite, including unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests, to improve test coverage and catch issues early.
• CI/CD Pipelines: Implemented continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines to streamline the deployment process and reduce manual errors.

Dedicated Technical Debt Sprints

To systematically address technical debt, PagerDuty introduced dedicated sprints focused on refactoring and improving the codebase:

• Scheduled Refactoring: Regularly scheduled sprints were dedicated to addressing technical debt, ensuring that it was systematically reduced over time.
• Incremental Improvements: This approach allowed for continuous improvement without disrupting ongoing development work.

Developer Empowerment and Culture

PagerDuty fostered a culture of ownership and accountability among its developers:

• Code Ownership: Encouraged developers to take ownership of their code, ensuring they were responsible for its quality and maintainability.
• Collaborative Environment: Promoted cross-functional collaboration to address technical debt collectively, involving teams from development, operations, and product management.

Modernizing Infrastructure

PagerDuty also focused on modernizing its infrastructure to support the new architecture and processes:

• Cloud-Native Technologies: Adopted cloud-native technologies to improve scalability, reliability, and operational efficiency.
• Observability and Monitoring: Enhanced observability and monitoring tools to gain better insights into system performance and quickly identify issues.

Outcomes Achieved

Improved Scalability and Performance

The transition to microservices and infrastructure modernization significantly improved the scalability and performance of PagerDuty's platform. Independent services could now be scaled as needed without impacting the entire system.

Faster Deployment and Reduced Risk

Enhanced testing and CI/CD pipelines enabled faster, more reliable deployments. Automated tests ensured that new code did not introduce regressions, and continuous deployment allowed for more frequent updates with reduced risk.

Increased Development Velocity

By systematically addressing technical debt, PagerDuty freed up engineering resources, allowing teams to focus more on innovation and new feature development. This increased development velocity and allowed PagerDuty to respond more quickly to customer needs.

Sustainable Growth and Innovation

The strategic measures taken to address technical debt positioned PagerDuty for sustainable growth and continuous innovation. The company could now balance maintaining a healthy codebase with delivering new capabilities to its users.

Conclusion

PagerDuty's journey to solving its technical debt problems demonstrates the importance of recognizing and addressing technical debt proactively.

By transitioning to microservices, enhancing testing and automation, dedicating sprints to technical debt, and fostering a culture of ownership and collaboration, PagerDuty was able to transform its technical debt into a competitive advantage.

This approach not only improved system performance and scalability but also reinvigorated innovation, enabling PagerDuty to continue its leadership in digital operations management.