Do you maintain this direct connection between customers and engineers today, and if so, how?
How does the interplay with product/growth teams work?
Product managers drive a lot of it, I expect that group to be spending at least 50% of their time talking with customers. They'll then bring in engineers when you have a higher priority or more technical issue as it's appropriate with customers. For particular features we have what we call "Customer Development Partners" who are the alpha/beta users for a feature as we develop the feature before we get to general availability and they'll interface with engineers. Shadi, our SVP of engineering, is also working on more ways to make this happen!