Work record / Stories

The bug I built the gate for

A markup error slipped into an early estimating-engine bid, and we used it to design the checks the engine still runs.

In an early version of the estimating engine, a bid for a quick-service restaurant went out with a markup calculation error built into its pricing. Nobody meant it. But a client could have lost real money if no one had noticed.

My team noticed and put a correction into a revised version. Fixing it quietly and moving on was possible. We used the failure instead as the design case for the permanent verification gates the engine runs to this day.

The revised bid went out at the correct number. The incident is also the direct reason the engine now enforces twenty-four hard assertions that stop the build automatically, so a bad number cannot reach a client.

A caught mistake brings relief. A mistake that changes how the whole system checks itself is worth more than the sting of admitting it. When something fails internally, the right answer is to make the system unable to repeat it. An error stopped before it reaches a client is free information about where the process needs a permanent check, and I chose to tell the team honestly what had nearly gone wrong.

Story details

All stories · Work record