[ZephyrBlu]

Is being a young company really an excuse when any half-decent engineer knows these things are bad?

Being a young company doesn't mean you ignore all the mistakes other people have made and figure them out for yourself.

I really surprised someone has access to the prod DB, and that it's possible for them to connect to it in dev (Meaning they have a copy of the credentials???).

[AYBABTME]

Knowing it's bad and punting on it for later are both things that can be possible at the same time.