Shoes for the Cobbler's Children
Phrase · Slang & Abbreviations
Definitions
A saying for the irony that people who build solutions for others often neglect their own internal needs. In engineering slang, it shows up when teams with excellent external products still suffer terrible internal tooling.
In plain English: The irony of experts neglecting to provide the same quality for themselves that they offer others.
Example: "The observability company had classic shoes for the cobbler's children problems, with great customer dashboards and painfully weak internal incident tooling."