The kingdom’s greatest treasure is not its gold, but who guards it. Every successful software system eventually becomes responsible for something far more valuable than the application itself. During its earliest days, a project may consist of little more than a handful of pages, a modest database, and enough business logic to solve a single problem. As the software matures, however, customers begin entrusting it with personal information, financial transactions, authentication credentials, business records, intellectual property, and years of institutional knowledge. Without anyone announcing the moment it happens, the application becomes the keeper of a treasury whose value far exceeds the cost of constructing the software. Many developers begin their…