A strong answer. “Support is deliberate for me rather than a stopgap — it's the fastest way to learn a product properly and the only entry route that gives you customer exposure from week one. But I'm clear about the trap, which is that queue work expands to fill the time and two years pass with deep product knowledge and nothing on a CV that reads as ownership.

So what I'm doing about it: I've automated our most repeated diagnostic into a script the team runs, which took our median time on that class from about forty minutes to five. I've taken ownership of one product area and I'm the person consulted on it. And I've turned our top three recurring tickets into documentation, which is measurably deflecting them.

Where I want to go is forward-deployed or solutions engineering — it uses the product depth and the customer skills, and adds the build side I'm developing. I'd rather say that clearly now than hope somebody notices, because in my experience managers move people who've told them where they're going.”