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Why you should have skin in the engineering game - The Intercom Blog
Summary
The post compares the high-stakes feedback of professional cycling to engineering, noting that engineers in growing companies often become disconnected from customers through support teams and product managers. The author, a former cyclist, advocates for engineers to maintain ‘skin in the game’ by personally connecting with customers. Intercom enforces regular customer days for all employees to give first-hand exposure, uses GitHub integration to easily dig into real customer conversations, and encourages direct outreach for complex issues. Working through a subtle bug caused by a feature update, the author iterated directly with a customer for a week, restoring their broken workflow. This personal investment in outcomes motivates engineers and ensures their work has real impact, while the post encourages others to seek similar practices.
Context
A blog post on Intercom’s engineering blog written by Ryan Sherlock, a former professional cyclist turned engineer. It addresses the common problem of engineers losing direct customer connection as companies grow and introduce dedicated support and product management teams.
Approach / What changed
Intercom uses three methods to keep engineers connected to customers: mandatory customer days for all employees, a GitHub integration that surfaces real customer conversations during issue investigation, and direct engineer-to-customer outreach for complex problems. The author demonstrated the direct outreach method by iterating with a single customer for a week to resolve a subtle workflow bug caused by a feature update.
Takeaways
Engineers in large organizations risk losing direct customer feedback due to dedicated support teams and product managers, which can diminish their sense of personal responsibility for outcomes.
Intercom mandates regular customer days for all employees to maintain first-hand exposure to customer issues and feedback, preventing insulation from the user experience.
Direct, iterative collaboration with a customer on a complex problem, as demonstrated with the group conversations bug, restores an engineer’s personal investment in the outcome and can lead to a more effective solution.
FAQ
How does Intercom keep engineers connected to customers?
Intercom requires all employees to spend regular 'customer days' talking directly to users. The company also provides a GitHub integration that lets engineers read customer conversations when investigating issues, and encourages engineers to contact customers directly for complex problems.
What engineering problem did the author solve with direct customer contact?
The author describes a bug fix for group conversations that broke one customer's workflow. By reaching out directly and iterating with the customer over a week, he was able to understand the subtle issue and restore the workflow.
What does 'skin in the game' mean in an engineering context?
It means having a personal investment of time and skill, with pride at stake, so that an engineer feels directly accountable for the outcome. The author contrasts this with being insulated by support teams, which removes the feeling of immediate impact.
Source and freshness
- Source
- intercom.com
- Published
- Added to Yomu
Summaries are generated from the original by a language model. Check the original before relying on it.
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