# My team went too fast with AI coding, and now we're drowning in tech debt

> Source: <https://dev.to/richard_smith_154156d471ef/my-team-went-too-fast-with-ai-coding-and-now-were-drowning-in-tech-debt-5hl0>
> Published: 2026-08-17 02:05:36+00:00

About six months ago, I was excited about shipping features quickly using AI-assisted development. We moved fast, iterated constantly, and hit milestones I would've called impossible a year earlier.

Then I tried onboarding a new developer last month. The codebase was a maze. Not because we lacked skill—we have good developers—but because the AI made it too easy to add layers without cleaning up what was underneath.

We've now started a conversation about rewriting our core modules the old way: slower, more deliberate, with stricter code review. It's humbling to admit, but sometimes fast feels expensive in retrospect.

This got me thinking about whether there's actually a market for tools that help small teams manage code quality when everyone's using AI. Something lighter than enterprise solutions, that actually fits a micro SaaS or one-person company workflow.

Has anyone tried building (or buying) something in this space? Curious if the pain point is widespread enough to be a real opportunity, or if it's just us being undisciplined.
