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by bob1029 321 days ago
I estimate that on some days an outage like this could ultimately save some businesses money.

There's a lot of cowboy development going on out there. Why not take this opportunity to talk to your customers for a bit? Make sure you're still building the right things.
2 comments
henryfjordan 321 days ago
At a startup, sure.

At any decently-sized org, the developers are not allowed to talk to customers on their own accord.

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bob1029 321 days ago
I've never worked somewhere I couldn't email a customer as long as the team was CC'd. This is a bit of a circular problem because if you don't get exposed to the customer in some capacity you'll never get good at working with them.

If the business is afraid to let you email the customer, you might need to work on your communications skills and go through some intentional demonstration efforts. For example, "Good morning <boss>, here's a draft of what I think we should send <CTO's name @ customer> regarding their feedback on the last build.".

That's literally all it takes to get into the game. Don't ask for permission to write the draft because then your managers will think it's gonna be this big ordeal and they'll definitely say no.

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henryfjordan 321 days ago
At a B2B, I might agree with you.

At a B2C, I would not email a customer directly without sign-off. We have marketing teams, research teams, comms, customer support, etc. I would be stepping on so many toes, and risking brand reputation, if I were to interact with our customers.

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Hackbraten 321 days ago
> There's a lot of cowboy development going on out there

This has been the case before VCSes existed.

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