As asked
Teams keep opening platform tickets for production issues in services they own. How would you clarify service ownership without abandoning teams?
Sample answer outline
Define ownership in operational terms: who is on call, who approves changes, who owns SLOs, and who fixes production bugs. The platform team should own shared tooling, templates, and guardrails, not become the default operations team for every product service. Strong answers include an escalation path, office hours, runbooks, and platform-provided diagnostics so teams can solve common issues themselves. The candidate should recognise that ownership changes require enablement, not a memo. The trap is either accepting every ticket forever or abruptly pushing work back without giving teams the capability to succeed.
Expect these follow-ups
- How do you handle a team that refuses to take on-call?
- What belongs in a service catalogue?
- When should the platform team take direct ownership of an incident?