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Coaching through cross-team conflict
The goal was not to declare a winner. It was to help two disciplines work together around the experience of the engineers using the system.
The situation
Frontend and backend collaboration had become strained because API errors made debugging and customer support difficult.
How I coached
- Reframed the conflict around customer and community experience.
- Coached a frontend engineer to provide precise, actionable backend bug reports.
- Encouraged backend engineers to design for open-source users debugging asynchronously.
- Elevated self-service error documentation as a shared frontend and backend requirement.
What changed
- Shifted the discussion from blame toward product usability.
- Improved shared understanding of asynchronous debugging, API design, and community needs.
- The team documented error codes and troubleshooting guidance in a customer-facing table, helping open-source users resolve known failures without first creating a support ticket.