Sales already promised dedicated infrastructure. Do you say yes?

transcript

Mid-interview, the VP says: sales just called. Our biggest prospect wants dedicated infrastructure. Sales already said yes. Do you?

The prospect is a chain with 2,500 outlets. It wants dedicated infrastructure. And its own encryption keys. Or it won't sign.

One yes is a hand-built environment, with its own versions. That's a snowflake. It breaks the fleet model. The candidate says yes to a dedicated cell instead. Same code, same pipeline. Their own schedule, inside the normal rollout waves. Priced for what it costs.

The interviewer pushes. What if they never want to upgrade? Then no. They choose when, not whether. A cell that never upgrades is a snowflake again.

Their own keys? Yes. Customer-managed keys, through the cloud KMS, for data at rest. But spell out the cost. Revoke the key, and their data is unreadable to Tillsy. Sync stops, and support can't help. Their choice. Written in the contract.

Sales will want that in writing, says the VP. Good. Then it's a tier on the price list. Not a promise made on a call.

Strong engineers don't just block sales. They say yes to a product, with clear consequences. And no to a snowflake.

Full breakdown in the lecture.