SurveyMonkey faced significant challenges when transitioning to remote work during COVID-19. Their development relied on a remocal workflow that allowed engineers to run containers locally while connecting to staging Kubernetes clusters via physical VPNs. However, the shift to hybrid work exposed the limitations of this setup, as the existing VPNs failed to support reliable connections for remote developers. Alternative solutions like AWS-native VPNs and cloud-based environments weren't viable, leading to lost productivity and missed deadlines. To restore efficient local workflows, SurveyMonkey's infrastructure team explored options and ultimately adopted mirrord, a Kubernetes-native solution. Within 48 hours of discovering mirrord, they integrated it into their existing AWS infrastructure without significant changes. This tool allowed developers to connect securely to remote clusters while maintaining the local development experience they preferred. As a result, the time to ship new features was cut by 50%, and defect rates decreased, leading to higher code quality. The impact of mirrord extended beyond productivity metrics. Developer onboarding time shrank from several days to just a few hours, streamlining the integration of new team members. Overall, the adoption of mirrord improved the development process, enabling better task estimation and execution. Internal support requests dropped, and developer satisfaction increased, indicating a significant enhancement in the overall developer experience at SurveyMonkey.