If you’ve spent any time building or maintaining technology, you’ve probably used the word“temporary.”A temporary firewall rule. A temporary service account. A temporary exception. A temporary configuration change.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with temporary solutions. Sometimes they’re exactly what’s needed to keep a project moving or solve a problem quickly.
The challenge is that technology has a long memory. Temporary decisions have a habit of quietly becoming permanent ones and this week’s cybersecurity headlines are full of examples.
Exposed source code and credentials. Compromised software packages. Edge devices left vulnerable. Critical enterprise software requiring emergency patching. Sensitive healthcare data stolen through systems that weren’t adequately protected.
Very few security incidents start with one catastrophic decision. More often, they’re the result of small decisions accumulating over time until someone finally notices.
As engineers, we naturally focus on building new capabilities. Just as important is routinely asking ourselves:What did we build six months ago that nobody has revisited?
Those are often the systems that deserve the most attention because good engineering isn’t just creating reliable systems, it’s creating processes that continuously improve those systems after they’re deployed and that’s where resilience comes from. Not perfection…maintenance.
