Engineering built an accrual calculator

“The code is self-documenting.”— Lukas, Engineering

Reason:

Officially because someone called it "basically just CRUD". With 494 users and zero documentation.

Built by:

Lukas, a field technician

Build time:

a long Thursday

Built with:

an Electron app wrapping a website

Database:

a database on Priya's laptop

Authentication:

the threat model is "why would anyone attack us?"

Deployment:

in a Docker container nobody can rebuild

Responsible:

a former employee still helping occasionally

Documentation:

a README describing a version that no longer exists

Security situation:

logout only hides the menu

Future disaster:

It will eventually need a migration project larger than the app itself.

Age: 3.0 years · originally expected to last 3 months · 4 owners so far · survived 2 reorganisations · last meaningful change 19 days ago

Rated common mostly because: alive 12x longer than intended, €19k per year, 11% chance of becoming business critical.