Architecture Planning, Refactoring, and Testing: A Necessity or a Waste of Time?

Hello to everyone reading this.

Today, I’d like to talk about three things every developer encounters: architecture planning, code refactoring, and test coverage. At first glance, these practices may seem secondary or even unnecessary — especially when deadlines are tight and budgets are limited. However, the long-term consequences of neglecting them are well-known to anyone who has ever supported a product that evolved chaotically.

Architecture Planning: the foundation without which everything collapses.

Architecture planning is a stage that is often underestimated, but it can determine the fate of a project for years ahead. Most people understand the importance of this stage — it can either simplify the future of the project or make it almost impossible to develop just a few months later.

I would like to express my thoughts on what needs to be done at this stage, rather than discuss which model to use. Every existing model has the right to exist, but only if it solves the specific tasks defined by developers according to the needs of the project and the business as a whole. First of all, the developer responsible for the architecture must thoroughly understand the business idea, gather all possible information from the client/owner, examine any conducted research or surveys (if available), communicate with designers, and learn not only what is included in the POC or MVP version, but also what will be added to the project in the future.

Understanding the core aspects of the business and the future direction finally allows the selection of an architectural model — a very important element. It directly affects both development speed and future maintainability, and ultimately the cost of the entire project.

It is important to derive from the collected information a list of tasks the product must solve, the number of users it should support, how much traffic it will process, etc.

Usually, the MVP version of the project is not the last one, so it is always important to plan for some level of scalability. This stage should not be treated as something unnecessary or something that can always be changed later. Replacing the entire architecture in an already functioning product is very difficult, risky, and often long and expensive.

A good architecture saves hundreds of hours; a bad one adds thousands of hours of pain.

Refactoring: when code lives longer than we would like.

I am sure that every developer has encountered this issue. Where does this problem even come from? Was the original developer bad if the code eventually needs to be rewritten? Sometimes this happens because the developer implemented a part of the code without fully understanding the context or potential future use.

But in most cases, everything is much simpler:

1. The developer receives a task → writes code based on the current logic.
2. A month later the logic changes → they make a “small adjustment.”
3. Then another one.
4. Then another developer takes over and adds changes.
5. After a year — this part becomes a tangled machine with 5–10 layers of patches.

This happens in all projects, not only in “imperfect” ones. It is a normal situation and should not be feared. In fact, it should be addressed as soon as possible. The longer an overloaded piece of code exists and the more it is modified, the harder it becomes to simplify. Yes, you can leave it as is — it works, so let it work — but the time will come when adding something becomes impossible, or you simply won’t be able to understand how it works. Eventually, you will just delete it and rewrite it from scratch. This may not show any immediate result to the end user, but overall it is extremely beneficial for the stability of the codebase and the ability to scale the product. Yes, it often takes a lot of time, but it is a necessity.

It is an investment into the future of the product.

Testing: the most underestimated yet very important part of development.

Perhaps the least important point on the list — but it still matters and makes sense. Of course, the code may work perfectly without tests, maybe even for a long time. But then someone new joins the team, makes some fixes or adds a feature, introduces a tiny mistake that goes unnoticed during review — and suddenly an important part of the functionality stops working, or even the entire product becomes unresponsive.

As a result, the clients are unhappy, the owner is upset, and the developers have a hard time locating the tiny issue that caused all of this.

Almost nobody likes writing tests. But when an important module breaks — everyone remembers them.

Testing is an important part of development and ensures the longevity and stability of the product. For an MVP version, it may be acceptable to skip tests and focus on something more important for the product. But in the end, they will still need to be implemented.

Yes, it is difficult, yes, it takes time — but later it will bring benefits during product maintenance and further improvement.

Final Thoughts

Architecture planning, refactoring, and testing are not “nice to have” and not something that can be postponed indefinitely.

These are the three pillars on which any successful product stands. If they are ignored: development slows down, technical debt grows, bugs multiply, and maintenance costs increase. If applied — the product becomes more stable, teams work faster, and the business gets results instead of chaos.

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