Project Background

You are a Research Scientist at Meta working on a feed ranking improvement for Facebook Feed. The original project goal is to ship a lightweight model update that improves meaningful social interactions (MSI) in the U.S. by the end of the quarter. The core team includes 4 Research Scientists, 5 ML Engineers, 1 Product Manager, 1 Data Scientist, and shared support from Infra and Responsible AI reviewers.

Two weeks into execution, you discover that with a modest amount of additional work outside your original charter, the same project could also unlock a reusable feature pipeline for Instagram Feed and improve offline evaluation reliability for future ranking experiments. This extra work is not in the committed roadmap, but it could create significant long-term value if handled without missing the Facebook launch.

Key Stakeholders

The Director of Ranking wants the Facebook Feed launch on time because it is already in the half planning review. The Instagram Feed lead wants the reusable pipeline but cannot commit engineers until next quarter. The ML Infrastructure team is concerned about adding new dependencies during a busy capacity period. The Responsible AI reviewer wants additional fairness checks before any broader reuse.

Constraints

• Launch deadline: 10 weeks from today
• Remaining budget: $120,000 for compute, labeling, and contractor support
• Team capacity: no new headcount; at most 2 engineers can be borrowed part-time from Infra for 3 weeks
• Dependency: feature store changes in Meta's ML infrastructure require review and typically take 10 business days
• Experimentation: only 1 large-scale A/B test slot is available on Facebook Feed this quarter

Complications

1. A senior ML engineer who owns the current training pipeline will be on leave during Weeks 6-7.
2. Early offline gains are strong, but the Data Scientist warns the metric may be overstating impact due to a logging inconsistency.
3. The Director asks whether you can "do both": hit the Facebook deadline and prepare the Instagram-reusable pipeline.

Your Task

1. Propose an execution plan that delivers the Facebook Feed launch while evaluating whether to take on the extra cross-surface work.
2. Define the trade-offs and decision points for going beyond your core responsibilities.
3. Create a stakeholder management plan, including how you align Ranking, Instagram, Infra, and Responsible AI.
4. Specify launch readiness criteria, risks, and rollback triggers.
5. Recommend what you would cut, defer, or phase if timelines tighten.