I suggest it's frequently less about knowing which corners to cut, and more about knowing hard from easy, to avoid future impedance mismatches between eng & sal

I suggest it's frequently less about knowing which corners to cut, and more about knowing hard from easy, to avoid future impedance mismatches between eng & sales/marketing (or even internal business leadership). One of the very most frustrating things for an exec is downtime. The next worst is inaccurate time estimates for IT work. If you don't have at least some experienced architects/developers, it's normal to find yourself in the position where nobody knows what they don't know, and that's a bad look for everyone involved. It's also why a lot of bigco's have been outsourcing internal appdev to MSPs over the last 10+ years. It de-risks projects, eliminates skilled labor shortages, and ensures reasonable QoS... in theory. It doesn't always work out that way, but that's the objective.