#2 What I've learned

At my job, every engineer does customer support. You might think it’s a distraction from the "real" engineering work, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Something special happens when I need to solve a user’s problem. Oftentimes, I myself have no clue about the solution. But digging into the code or the docs to figure it out makes me understand the product like nothing else.

But that’s not the only reason - it also shows us what we need to work on next. We don't get our tasks handed down by product managers (we've got just one, actually). It's on us to decide what to build. And for that, we need to truly understand what our customers need. Nothing gets us there faster than direct support.

Halfway through my 4th support duty now, I already feel very comfortable with our product. And I’ve been here just a few months!