Software engineering Quote by Gene Kim
““We will actively manage this technical debt by ensuring that we invest at least 20% of all Development and Operations cycles on refactoring, investing in automation work and architecture and non-functional requirements (NFRs, sometimes referred to as the “ilities”), such as maintainability, manageability, scalability, reliability, testability, deployability, and security. Figure 11: Invest 20% of cycles on those that create positive, user-invisible value (Source: “Machine Learning and Technical Debt with D. Sculley,” Software Engineering Daily podcast, November 17, 2015,””
About This Quote
Source Podcast: Software Engineering Daily, “Machine Learning and Technical Debt with D. Sculley,” November 17, 2015
Allocate a fixed portion of development time to refactoring, automation, and non‑functional improvements to keep systems healthy and sustainable.
In simple terms: Spend part of each cycle on invisible quality work.
Key Takeaway
Reserve 20% of effort for technical debt reduction.
Themes
maintenance
quality
technical debt
automation
architecture
Mood
pragmatic
focused
Type
advice
process
When to use this quote
- software development
- IT operations
- cloud services
- product scaling
Key Concepts
refactoring
non‑functional requirements
technical debt management
Questions to Reflect On
- How do you measure the ROI of non‑functional work?
- What risks arise if technical debt is ignored?
A Different Perspective
Neglecting invisible work can cause hidden failures later.
![“Bill Baker, a distinguished engineer at Microsoft, quipped that we used to treat servers like pets: “You name them and when they get sick, you nurse them back to health. [Now] servers are [treated] like cattle. You number them and when they get sick, you shoot them.” quote by Gene Kim](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/e7b/gene-kim-2268_health_bill-baker-a-distinguished-engineer-at-m_187582.jpg)
