Proven templates

Alumni (email or LinkedIn):

Hi Maya — fellow UW alum (’22, CSE). Loved your blog on feature flags at FinFast; I’m working on a similar toggle system in a side project. Would you have 10 minutes this week for two questions about how your team rolls out infra changes safely? Totally fine if timing’s bad — appreciate any pointers. Thanks!

Open-source angle (GitHub → email):

Hey Alex — thanks for reviewing my PR #482 on foo-cache. I’m applying for a caching role at BarTech (your old team). Mind if I send you a 3‑sentence background for feedback or a referral if it aligns? All good if not — grateful for your time either way.

Event follow-up:

Hi Priya — enjoyed your QCon talk on incident runbooks. I volunteer on our on‑call rotation and tried your “first page is only links” idea. Could I ask two quick questions about metrics you track pre‑mortem? Happy to email instead if easier.

Mutual intro request (to a friend):

Hey Sam — would you be comfortable intro’ing me to Jordan on the ML Platform team? Draft blurb below to copy/paste if so. Zero pressure if it’s not a fit.

Company-interest cold email:

Subject: Tiny ask re: Platform Eng @ Northwind Hi Jordan — I’m a backend engineer who shipped the RBAC migration at Contoso (cut P95 auth latency 28%). I’m exploring Platform roles and Northwind’s roadmap caught my eye (particularly the service mesh work). Would you be open to a 10‑minute chat, or pointing me to the right person? No worries if not — thanks for reading.