SRE teams that fight with product teams don't get things done. SRE teams that get along with product teams get surprising amounts of reliability work done by product engineers themselves. Here's how to build that trust.
Start by making them faster, not slower
The common SRE pattern: introduce yourself by adding gates. 'You need to do X before you can deploy.' 'Your service needs Y before production.' Product teams immediately see you as friction.
Better pattern: introduce yourself by removing friction. 'I noticed your CI takes 20 minutes. I can get it to 6. Interested?' Now you're useful. The gates come later, and you have trust to spend.
Speak their language
