The 'delayed opinions givers' - engineering teams everybody hates

When another team needs work done in your domain, you face three choices: ignore them, give delayed attention, or prioritize helping them. Delayed attention is the worst option—it wastes engineer-weeks through blocked work and messy merges while gaining nothing. Teams that prioritize unblocking others (even at the cost of their own deadlines) build better reputations and create reciprocal relationships. The key is responding promptly to requests like code reviews and consultations, treating cross-team dependencies with the same urgency as internal work. Set boundaries with teams that abuse this approach, but default to being a 'giver' team that puts others' needs first 90% of the time.