Facility Services built a vendor onboarding portal

“We can rebuild it properly later.”— Anja, Facility Services

Reason:

Allegedly because the export button creates Headcount_use-this-one.xlsx, but nobody knows where. Built in 6 evenings and demonstrated immediately afterwards.

Built by:

Anja, a recruiter

Build time:

a long Thursday

Built with:

an Electron app, for a form

Database:

Elasticsearch, now also storing the invoices

Authentication:

passwords are stored in plaintext, for troubleshooting

Deployment:

running on a server last patched 141 days ago

Responsible:

Marco, currently on parental leave

Documentation:

an email chain containing the phrase "see below" 4 times

Security situation:

authorization happens entirely in the frontend

Future disaster:

It will be presented to management as evidence that shadow IT works.

Age: 1.9 years · originally expected to last 14 days · 2 owners so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 210 days ago · original builder left 249 days ago

Rated common mostly because: alive 48x longer than intended, the builder has left, €14k per year.