Today was my first day on the job as a Junior Software Developer and was my first non-internship position after university. Unfortunately i screwed up badly.
I was basically given a document detailing how to setup my local development environment. Which involves run a small script to create my own personal DB instance from some test data. After running the command i was supposed to copy the database url/password/username outputted by the command and configure my dev environment to point to that database. Unfortunately instead of copying the values outputted by the tool, i instead for whatever reason used the values the document had.
Unfortunately apparently those values were actually for the production database (why they are documented in the dev setup guide i have no idea). Then from my understanding that the tests add fake data, and clear existing data between test runs which basically cleared all the data from the production database. Honestly i had no idea what i did and it wasn't about 30 or so minutes after did someone actually figure out/realize what i did.
While what i had done was sinking in. The CTO told me to leave and never come back. He also informed me that apparently legal would need to get involved due to severity of the data loss. I basically offered and pleaded to let me help in someway to redeem my self and i was told that i "completely fucked everything up".
So i left. I kept an eye on slack, and from what i can tell the backups were not restoring and it seemed like the entire dev team was on full on panic mode. I sent a slack message to our CTO explaining my screw up. Only to have my slack account immediately disabled not long after sending the message.
I haven't heard from HR, or anything and i am panicking to high heavens. I just moved across the country for this job, is there anything i can even remotely do to redeem my self in this situation? Can i possibly be sued for this? Should i contact HR directly? I am really confused, and terrified.
EDIT Just to make it even more embarrassing, i just realized that i took the laptop i was issued home with me (i have no idea why i did this at all).
edneil on June 3rd, 2017 at 13:00 UTC »
The level of incompetency on the company's part is incredible.
They gave a new, junior, hire direct read-write access to their production data. The credentials for the dev environment seem to have been identical to the production environment. Edit: the production credentials were stored in a 'how to set up your dev environment' document, thanks /u/jonnyd005 They did not have a tested backup (== no backup at all) They did not have a disaster recovery plan Upon termination they did not disable his accountsAnd they blame the new guy?
Their CTO should at the very least resign, because that's a complete shit show no matter how you look at it.
POGtastic on June 3rd, 2017 at 12:47 UTC »
The CTO is the one who needs to be fired, not the first-day junior dev who exposed this idiocy. Any, and I repeat, any safeguards would have prevented literally all of this from happening.
My favorite comment is "What stack were they using, Jenga?"
JesterBarelyKnowHer on June 3rd, 2017 at 10:24 UTC »
Holy shit, and I thought my Friday was bad.
For non-tech people, as horrible as this sounds, OP really did nothing wrong per se. He made a very minor mistake, while the company made a BUNCH of VERY large ones. Like, stupidly large. This guy has actually started his career off very well.
Inevitably mistakes are made, and the sooner you make some huge ones, the sooner you can learn that it's not the end of the world (even if it's the end of your tenure where you are). We call this kind of thing an RGE: Resume Generating Event. But damned if this kid isn't gonna have the best tech story to tell; "I took down a decently large company on my first day, and it wasn't even my fault."
Every tech guy I know worth his salt has a story of one or two of MAJOR fuckups, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Doesn't mean they don't know what they are doing, make excellent employees, and are eminently hireable.