Why does my platform team hate me?

Misunderstandings and frustrations with platform teams often stem from communication gaps rather than malicious intent, as they play a crucial role in maintaining infrastructure and enabling product development. Issues such as slow responsiveness are typically due to resource constraints and complex decision-making processes rather than deliberate obstruction. Establishing clear communication, feedback loops, and service level agreements can help improve efficiency and productivity. Inflexible processes can be mitigated by adopting agile practices, while inaccuracies in documentation can be addressed by investing in robust API management platforms. Frequent outages highlight the need for better monitoring and incident response systems to ensure platform stability. Limited self-service capabilities can be improved by creating portals that reduce dependencies on the platform team, and over-engineering can be avoided by focusing on the platform's core purpose. By working together and aligning on platform goals, teams can enhance platform engineering efficiency.