From Shadow IT to
Security Champions
How a FinTech startup eliminated credential delays and made developers faster through intelligent secret management
The 2 AM Problem
It started with a production outage at 2 AM on a Saturday.
A critical database migration needed to run. The on-call developer needed credentials. They pinged the team lead in Slack. No response. They checked the team password manager — three different database passwords, no indication which one was current. They tried all three. None worked.
Forty minutes later, someone found the credential in a different password manager. Turns out it belonged to a developer who'd left the company eight months ago. It still worked.
The migration ran. Production came back up. And everyone went back to sleep knowing this would happen again.
The Real Problem: Security vs. Speed
This wasn't a one-time failure. It was systemic.
What We Discovered
- ✗Developers were using their personal credentials to access production systems — because they were the ones who actually knew how the products worked
- ✗Passwords and secrets were scattered across multiple password managers, Slack DMs, and wikis
- ✗Nobody knew which credentials were current, how they were created, or who had access
- ✗When developers left, their credentials often stayed active for weeks or months
- ✗There was no rotation strategy — credentials lived forever unless something broke
- ✗Separation of duties? On paper only. In reality, developers had to have production access to support the product
The Shadow IT Problem
Developers weren't bypassing security to be reckless. They were bypassing security because the official process was too slow. When production is down, you can't wait 48 hours for a ticket to be approved.
The Announcement That Backfired
We knew centralized secret management was the answer. So we announced it in an all-hands.
"We're implementing centralized secret management. Developers will no longer have direct access to production credentials."
The Slack channel exploded.
We'd lost their trust before we even started.
The Shift: Security as Enabler
We realized the problem wasn't the developers. It was our approach.
✗ The Old Way
"We're taking away your access. Submit a ticket. Wait for approval. Hope someone's online."
✓ The New Way
"Let's build something that makes your job easier and more secure."
What We Did
- 1Worked with DevOps and engineering to choose the secret management tool together
- 2Set the constraints: Whatever tool they picked had to support automatic rotation, audit logging, and time-limited access
- 3Let them decide: They chose HashiCorp Vault because it integrated with their existing workflows
The key insight: Security tools fail when they're designed for developers instead of with developers.
The Solution: Break-Glass That Actually Works
Automatic Secret Rotation on Deploy
Vault's dynamic secret capabilities meant we could generate time-limited database credentials on demand. But the genius was in the deployment workflow:
Before
- • Developer uses a static password
- • Password never rotates unless manually changed
- • No way to know if it's compromised
- • When developer leaves, password often stays active
After
- • Developer requests credential through Vault
- • Gets a time-limited credential (valid for the task duration)
- • Action is logged automatically
- • On app restart/deploy: credential rotates automatically
- • Old credential becomes invalid immediately
Why This Worked
Faster access
No waiting for approvals. Request → instant credential.
No stale credentials
Every deploy rotates secrets. Developer access expires when task completes.
Audit trail
Every access logged with who, when, what, and why.
Break-glass ready
Production down at 2 AM? Request credential, fix it, credential auto-rotates when you're done.
The Developer Experience
We measured what mattered: time to access.
Before Vault
- • Request password in Slack: 5-45 minutes (depending on who's online)
- • Hope it's the current password
- • Manually revoke access later (often forgotten)
After Vault
- • Request credential via CLI: 5 seconds
- • Guaranteed current
- • Automatically expires and rotates
Result: Developers moved faster, not slower. The most secure path became the easiest path.
The Outcomes
credential access time — down from 30 minutes average
stale credentials — automatic rotation on every deploy
audit coverage — every access logged with full context
Time Savings
Password retrieval
Credential rotation
Access requests
Incident response
Cultural Shift
The bigger win wasn't technical — it was cultural.
Before
Security and engineering saw each other as adversaries. Security blocked velocity. Engineering circumvented controls.
After
Engineering became security advocates. When new developers joined, the team taught them Vault workflows because it made their jobs easier.
We didn't just solve a secret management problem. We proved security could be an enabler, not a blocker.
The Template: Why This Worked
This isn't about HashiCorp Vault. It's about designing security that people want to use.
✓ What We Did Right
- →Collaborated, didn't dictate — Let engineering choose the tool. Set the constraints, not the solution.
- →Made the secure path the easy path — If security slows developers down, they'll bypass it.
- →Designed for break-glass scenarios — Production outages don't wait for business hours.
- →Built trust through transparency — Full audit logs. Clear policies. No surprise lockouts.
- →Measured what mattered — Time to access. Developer satisfaction. Stale credential count.
✗ What We Didn't Do
- ✗Didn't force a tool the team hated
- ✗Didn't create a ticket queue with 48-hour SLAs
- ✗Didn't block access without offering a better alternative
- ✗Didn't prioritize compliance over usability (we got both)
Security Doesn't Have to Slow Teams Down
When developers are fighting your security controls, it's not because they're reckless. It's because your controls don't fit their reality.
At Asgard, we call this Security as Enabler. It's one of the core pillars of the World Tree Framework — not just securing systems, but enabling teams to move faster because of security, not in spite of it.
Details have been generalized to protect confidentiality. The approach, outcomes, and lessons are real.