Learning & Development built a candidate referral portal

“The database isn't exposed. I think.”— Chen, Learning & Development

Reason:

Allegedly because the process requires signatures from 3 people. Built during an offsite instead of the thing they were asked to build.

Built by:

Chen, a working student

Build time:

an afternoon, mostly

Built with:

Lovable, and a pinch of optimism

Database:

a database dump from July that is "probably current enough"

Authentication:

"auth is on the roadmap" — has been for 823 days

Deployment:

behind a domain that still contains the word demo

Responsible:

IT Service Desk, because their name appeared first in the meeting notes

Documentation:

an architecture diagram containing a box labelled "magic happens here"

Security situation:

the admin URL contains the word secret

Future disaster:

It will become impossible to shut down because 15 other tools depend on it.

Age: 2.4 years · originally expected to last 7 days · 4 owners so far · last meaningful change 210 days ago

Rated common mostly because: €200k per year, alive 128x longer than intended, 1 accidental connections.