Roundtable: How to Balance Product Velocity & Technical Debt

Ship fast, but don’t break everything

The eternal engineering dilemma: deliver now or pay later?

Every engineering leader lives this tradeoff. Push features to hit deadlines, and the debt piles up. Slow down to refactor, and suddenly you’re “blocking the business.” There’s no perfect formula, but there are better ways to navigate it.

In this roundtable, we’ll dig into:

1. When to say yes to technical debt—and when to draw the line
2. How to communicate the real cost of shortcuts to product and business partners
3. Building debt paydown into sprint planning (without grinding momentum to a halt)
4. Measuring the debt that actually matters vs. chasing clean code for its own sake
5. Systems and guardrails to prevent tech debt from turning into tech crisis

Meet Your Host

Manoj Mohan, Head of Engineering, Data Platforms & Insights @ Intuit

With 20+ years leading global engineering teams, Manoj has scaled platforms that handle billions of requests daily and generate $100M+ in revenue for over 140M users. He’s built teams that move fast—without cutting corners—and brings hard-won lessons on managing debt while hitting aggressive growth goals.

Join a room of experienced engineering leaders for a candid, tactical conversation on how to move quickly without losing control of your codebase.