What happens if our only technical person leaves? — answered by Engineer Saeed Baatiah
This is the most dangerous technical risk in small companies and the least noticed. Ask today, before you need to: are the domain, hosting and service accounts in the company’s name or their personal one? Is there enough documentation for someone else to continue? Is the code in a repository the company owns? Does anyone else know the critical passwords? Four answers of “no” mean your company is hostage to a single resignation.
Check this today rather than when they hand in their notice, because correcting it after a departure is announced is far harder. The list: the site’s domain, hosting, cloud service accounts, the app-store developer account, the email control panel, the code repository, payment and billing accounts, and the Google Business profile. For each, ask: in whose name is it registered, and under which email address.
And the preventive fix is simpler than it looks: a company-domain email for every service account rather than a personal one, a shared password manager owned by the business owner, a code repository in the company’s name to which the developer is added as a member rather than an owner, and short documentation per system updated at every major change. Four measures done in a day that protect your company for years.
And if you are already in the bad position — accounts in their name and no documentation — address it now, calmly and without accusation. Request the transfer as part of ordinary administrative housekeeping rather than as a reaction to suspicion. Most people cooperate, and it is delaying until the moment of a dispute that turns this into a problem.
- Check today: domain, hosting, app stores, email, code repository
- Every service account on a company email, never a personal one
- The developer is a member of the company’s repository, not its owner
- Handle it as routine housekeeping, not a reaction to suspicion