Working in a multi-customer team means that every day looks different for us. We work with several customers across different industries, helping them develop and maintain solutions built on Microsoft Power Platform. Some of the work is about further developing an existing application, some of it is about solving a problem that has emerged in everyday use, and increasingly, we are also exploring what AI can bring to these solutions.
The common thread is that we work closely with our customers, and we need to understand the context to create the best value. That means, on top of the technical solution, we need to understand why they need it, how their business works, and what will make a real difference to the people using the solution. So we need to be good at asking questions!
Understanding the business and the real need behind the technical solution
Power Platform gives us a set of tools for building applications, automations, data visualisations, and other solutions within the Microsoft ecosystem. One of its strengths is speed. We can use pre-built components and develop applications relatively quickly, which means we can move from a business need to something tangible without starting everything from scratch.
That speed also changes the way we work with customers. Rather than discussing an abstract idea for weeks, we can often build a working demo and use that to continue the conversation. Once people have something in front of them, it becomes much easier to discuss what actually works, what needs to change, and what the process should look like.
In one of our projects, for example, we were developing an application that would be used by people from several different organisational units. As the development progressed, it became clear that the different units didn’t always have a shared process. Some had their own ways of working, while others didn’t have a clearly defined process at all. So we needed to discuss the workflow and the needs of each unit before digitising any existing processes.
This is where the consulting side of the work becomes important. We have regular discussions with the customer to go through open questions, clarify requirements, and agree on how things should work. The customer needs to be closely involved, because otherwise there is a real risk of building the wrong thing.
Different customers, different contexts
Our multi-customer setup means that we work with several customers using the same underlying technology, but with very different solutions, industries, and needs. Some of the applications support internal processes and reporting. Others involve more complex integrations with different systems. Depending on the customer and the solution, our work can include Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Pages, Dataverse, JavaScript and .NET development, as well as integration and deployment work.
For one customer, we’ve been developing a solution that supports their portfolio and reporting around climate-related funding. The solution already exists, and we continuously develop it as the customer’s needs and ways of working change. New features are added, reporting is adapted, and the solution evolves alongside the organisation.
In another type of project, the solution may involve considerably more integrations and more complex business logic. This variety is one of the things we enjoy about working in a multi-customer team. We get to see different ways of working and different kinds of applications, and completely different industries. We also have a wider Power Platform community around us, so there is always support available when needed.
Investigation skills are essential in this line of work
One of the lessons you learn quite quickly in this kind of work is that a technical problem isn’t always a technical problem. When we take over an existing solution, we need to understand how it was built and how the customer is using it. Documentation can be excellent, non-existent, or anything in between. The people who originally built the application may no longer be involved, and the people using it may have developed their own ways of working around it.
That means we sometimes have to approach an issue a little like detectives. We investigate what is happening, look at the existing solution, ask questions, and make sense of the business logic behind it. A reported error might turn out to be a genuine bug, but it might also be a misunderstanding, a training need, or a situation where the software is being used differently from what was originally intended.
Understanding this context matters especially in maintenance work. We inherit the code or the application, as well as the business logic around it. So if a customer says that they need a particular button, we want to understand what the button is supposed to achieve. Sometimes there can be a better way to solve the underlying problem.
Asking the right questions is the key.
Keeping up with a constantly changing platform
Power Platform continues to change, and Microsoft is increasingly bringing AI capabilities into the platform. For developers, that means keeping up with new features, changes, and sometimes quite significant shifts in how the tools work. We are already working with AI agents that help customers find information from sources such as intranets or SharePoint.
At the moment, we are also evaluating different versions and options with customers, looking at things like functionality, usage, and costs. AI capabilities can open up new possibilities, but they also come with questions around licensing, governance, data, and whether the added value makes sense for a particular customer.
For us, staying up to date is a shared responsibility. We have an active Power Platform community, regular knowledge-sharing sessions, and opportunities for colleagues to demonstrate things they have learned in their projects. Microsoft certifications are also part of the picture, and the wider team shares information about new releases, useful findings, and practical solutions. Knowing where to find support is part of the skill set, too.
A team where people can ask for help
The multi-customer setup could easily become complicated if everyone had to keep track of everything. We therefore try to protect developers from constant context switching. Usually, a couple of people focus on a particular customer or topic, while the rest of the team can stay out of it unless their help is needed.
At the same time, we make sure that the whole team has enough context. When we onboard a new customer or project, we do the onboarding together, and we have a weekly alignment meeting where we go through what everyone is working on and what is coming up. That makes it easier to step in when someone is away and means that knowledge doesn’t sit with a single person.
The same principle applies when we get stuck. We start by investigating the problem ourselves, then ask colleagues, use the wider community, or look for other ways forward. When discussing customer work internally, we are naturally careful with confidentiality and make sure we don’t share customer-specific information with people who don’t have access to it.
Variety is what makes this work interesting
There is always something new to learn, a new customer context to understand, or a new change in the technology to figure out. Sometimes several things happen at once and it can get hectic, but we work as a team and help each other.
The most rewarding part is seeing the impact of the work. A small change or fix can make someone’s everyday work easier immediately. A new application can help an organisation streamline a process that previously depended on individual ways of working. Automation can remove repetitive manual work. And sometimes, just showing the customer how to use the solution in the best way can open up new possibilities.
Working in this kind of team requires technical skills, but we also need to be proactive, comfortable communicating with customers, willing to question things, and able to make decisions while knowing when to ask for help. We also need curiosity to keep up with all the changes around us. But the changing environment is also what makes this work interesting.
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