How Can You Ensure Code Quality During Rapid Development Cycles?

Maintaining code quality during rapid development cycles can feel like an uphill battle. So how do top developers ensure their code remains robust and reliable under tight deadlines? Industry experts, including directors and senior software engineers, have shared their most effective strategies. From leveraging automation when necessary to prioritizing thorough code reviews, these nine insightful approaches will help you strike the perfect balance between speed and quality in your development process.

• Implement Automations Where Possible
• Combine Key Strategies with Powerful Tools
• Integrate Continuous Testing and Deployment
• Invest in CI/CD
• Adopt Best Practices for Rapid Iteration
• Maintain a Systematic Review Process 
• Prioritize Quality Code Before Testing
• Leverage Static Code Analysis
• Dedicate Time for Thorough Code Reviews

Implement Automations Where Possible

To ensure code quality during rapid development cycles, we implement a combination of automated testing, continuous integration, and peer code reviews. 

Automated testing, including unit and integration tests, helps catch issues early. Continuous integration ensures that code changes are automatically tested and integrated, minimizing the risk of integration problems. Peer code reviews foster a culture of accountability and knowledge-sharing, as they allow developers to provide constructive feedback and maintain coding standards. 

Additionally, we emphasize the importance of maintaining comprehensive documentation and adopting coding best practices, which streamline onboarding and reduce technical debt.

Sergiy Fitsak, Managing Director, Fintech Expert, Softjourn

Combine Key Strategies with Powerful Tools

Ensuring code quality during rapid development cycles is essential, and I use a few key strategies to maintain high standards. 

First, I emphasize the importance of automated testing. Writing unit, integration, and end-to-end tests allows me to catch bugs early and ensures that new changes don’t break existing functionality. Tools like pytest for Python or Jest for JavaScript are particularly useful because they provide specific benefits such as ease of use, comprehensive test coverage, or integration with other tools, which help streamline this process.

Second, I foster a sense of collaboration through code reviews and pair programming. Having another set of eyes on the code not only catches issues I might have missed but also promotes knowledge-sharing and improves the overall quality of the codebase. This active engagement in the development process is key to our success. 

Third, I empower us with continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. These pipelines automate the process of testing and deploying code, ensuring that only code that passes all tests is merged and deployed. Services like GitHub Actions or Jenkins give us a sense of control over our code, enhancing our confidence in its quality.

Fourth, I maintain a consistent coding style and enforce it with linters. This makes the codebase more readable and easier to maintain. Tools like ESLint for JavaScript and flake8 for Python help enforce coding standards.

Lastly, I prioritize writing clear and concise documentation. This includes inline comments, comprehensive README files, and API documentation. Good documentation is not just a nice-to-have; it’s a critical component of maintaining code quality. It ensures that anyone working on the code can understand it, contribute effectively, and reduces the likelihood of introducing errors.

By combining these practices, I ensure that code quality remains high even during fast-paced development cycles.

Jerome Hardaway, Software Engineer, Executive Director, Vets Who COde

Integrate Continuous Testing and Deployment

Implementing continuous integration and automated testing ensures code quality. By integrating small code changes frequently and testing them automatically, we catch issues early and maintain high standards. For instance, using tools like Jenkins and Selenium allowed us to keep our codebase stable and reliable, even during rapid-development cycles, ensuring high-quality releases.

Alex Stasiak, CEO & Founder, Startup House

Invest in CI/CD 

We are a software development company, and this is something of utmost importance to us. We use automation testing as part of our CI/CD process to make sure code quality is great, and also we can deploy rapidly. We have DevOps engineers who create a framework for the CI/CD process and work with the QA lead to integrate the automation process. The entire DevOps requires investment in tools and resources, so be ready with the budget to support CI/CD and automation testing.

Piyush Jain, CEO, Simpalm

Adopt Best Practices for Rapid Iteration

To ensure both rapid iteration and code quality, automation is the key. I’ve discovered a few best practices that a software engineering team can deploy.

Write and run automated tests alongside the code. Think of these as safety nets that catch bugs before they reach users. Unit tests are not sufficient; having good end-to-end integration tests that resemble real-world scenarios is the key.

And although not a silver bullet, code reviews provide invaluable insights. Having a second pair of eyes examine the code helps catch anomalies in patterns and logical issues that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Next, automatic lint rules can be integrated directly into development environments. These automated tools help resolve many formatting and code-quality issues automatically, maintaining consistency across the codebase.

Finally, production code should be automatically rolled back based on certain triggers—like anomaly detection on key business metrics or high latency and error rates on APIs.

Tejaswi Agarwal, Tech Lead – Software Engineering, Uber

Maintain a Systematic Review Process 

You can ensure code quality during rapid-development cycles by implementing a systematic review process. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a major or a minor update; peer reviews by concerned professionals help you maintain the quality of the code. The key areas to focus on here are the code’s readability, maintainability, and cleanliness. You should also ensure that your team is acquainted with the latest best practices and adheres to them during the review.

Chris Klosowski, President, Easy Digital Downloads

Prioritize Quality Code Before Testing

Ensuring code quality during rapid development cycles is essential to keep the momentum. Typically, we software developers hand our code to testers, but handing over poor-quality code should never be an option. Our sole responsibility in this cycle is to deliver great code. If we deliver garbage code, what does that say about us?

You need to take 5 minutes to test the code regardless of how fast the development cycle is. Check your unit tests pass, make sure your code does what it’s supposed to, and finally switch your hats and look at it like your typical user would. These quick tests ensure code quality and ultimately safeguard your reputation as a coder.

Geoffrey Bourne, Co-Founder, Ayrshare

Leverage Static Code Analysis

My team uses static code analysis to ensure code quality during rapid development cycles. Compared to other strategies we employ, static code analysis allows us to examine and evaluate source code without executing it. This allows us to identify potential errors and vulnerabilities and check for any coding standards violations that might have occurred during the rapid development cycle.

Although the static code analysis technique presents challenges such as false positives and negatives, we’ve overcome these issues by automating the code-testing and analysis process. We also customize rules to fit our specific projects while integrating with continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) strategies.

Clooney Wang, CEO, TrackingMore

Dedicate Time for Thorough Code Reviews

When it comes to the development process itself, one crucial approach is dedicating time for thorough code reviews, which are time-consuming but essential for maintaining high standards. We recommend setting aside 30-60 minutes each day for this purpose, enabling team members to contribute meaningfully to the review process. Additionally, we devote one day a week to reviewing. 

During the release process, testing often presents the most significant bottleneck. To address this, ensuring test stability is critical, and reruns can be particularly effective in eliminating timing-sensitive test failures. Automation tools, such as Jenkins for CI/CD, play a pivotal role too, helping streamline the testing process and support parallelized testing, further accelerating the workflow. 

A strategic approach to testing is also essential. Engineers should identify a core set of tests that catch the most issues, reserving comprehensive tests for major releases. This targeted testing helps meet tight deadlines without sacrificing quality. Another effective strategy is to merge as much code as comfortably possible and run all automated tests over the weekend. We then implement a hard freeze on Monday afternoon, allowing the entire team—spread across different time zones—to assess the release’s readiness comprehensively. This approach provides a clear status check before the final release cut, ensuring that everyone is on the same page. 

Lastly, fostering a culture of shared responsibility is crucial. At Payara, we emphasize that when something seems off, it’s everyone’s responsibility to either address it or ensure someone else is. We also encourage techniques like pair programming and rubber duck debugging. These not only encourage a culture of mutual support but can help break down and analyze potential issues. While delivering quality code in quick development cycles is challenging, it is far from impossible. With the right practices, development can be both fast and reliable, ensuring timely, valuable updates for users.

Andrew Pielage, Senior Software Engineer, Payara Services Ltd