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1226 points bishopsmother | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.414s | source
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yamrzou ◴[] No.35046052[source]
I'm not a user of Fly.io. I can't help but notice how remarkable the effect of open communication on potential end users like me. I remember reading about their reliability problems on HN some time ago. That biased my view of the company. After reading this, the open communication and transparency restored my trust in them, and would make them again a potential candidate for future projects. Because now I know that they acknowledge the problem and that they are trying to improve things.
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snapetom ◴[] No.35047533[source]
This is probably therapy, but your message and fly.io's post resonates a lot with what I'm going through. I took a product owner role about 6 months ago, my first, with a company that has turned out to be just a mired mess, and a product universally hated both internally and externally.

Long story short, it's completely over-engineered by a bunch of intellectual engineers with no focus, no discipline, and no oversight. It ended up not delivering on any promises it made, and there were a lot of them.

I was warned left and right before presentations and meetings, "this customer hates your product because of ...." I started off every meeting with saying, "we're rearchitecting the product, this is how we're doing it, this is the tech we are using." Immediately there was a sense of relief from customers, followed by questions like, "why can't <current product> deliver <feature> that was promised?" I'm completely honest with bad decisions that were made and how it impacted the feature. Sure, there is skepticism on what we are doing, and I tell them they should absolutely be skeptical based on our track record. The result has been customers who have hated my product now offering to work with us on development.

I've also been completely forthcoming on configuration, security, resources, and setup issues I am finding, many of them are absolutely freakin' insane. I've flat out told customers it's frankly embarrassing and never let us do something like this in the future. The best feedback on this was, "At least you're telling us something. We usually get silence from this team."

God, this is the most depressing job ever.

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eyelidlessness ◴[] No.35050562[source]
When I was in an engineering IC version of this role, I longed for someone like you to have my back in management and have customers’ backs too. If I had a time machine and a magic lamp I’d team up with you.

As a future representation of past me, I can tell you:

1. Everything it’s making you feel is valid.

1b. If you’re feeling burnt out, please listen to it. It gets worse if you let it.

2. While I can’t hire you now, I can already tell you’re eminently hireable. If you have any cautious inclination to move, you will probably be better served by greener pastures.

3. Just take care of yourself.

4. When 3 contradicts 2, favor 3.

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1. snapetom ◴[] No.35052433[source]
Man, you don't know how this impacted me.

My boss is supportive, but he's also under heavy fire. Like I mentioned, my peers are rightfully skeptical. My team are a bunch of sharp, good guys, but haven't had any good guidance of mentorship in years, if not decades. They're all different, but what the have in common is that they've been screwed and judged unfairly thanks to past incompetence. That just pisses me off.

There's hope from those around me, but it's a pretty darn lonely job. You just gave me the fuel to not feel already beat up when I walk in the door tomorrow.

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2. pbronez ◴[] No.35068330[source]
Agree with GP - your post makes me want to hire you.

One trick you might try: write future press releases. This helps you look beyond the immediate problems and focus on the destination. For example:

“Q3 2023: ACME CO released version Z today, which dramatically simplifies our engine to focus on core user needs. ‘It does thing I want an doesn’t crash anymore’ says Key Buyer #1”

By writing this down, you can put the vision in front of everyone. Then check it against actual progress to see how you’re doing.