Project Background
Attentive is preparing to launch a new AI-driven message optimization capability inside Attentive Journeys that automatically selects send time and message variant for SMS campaigns. The feature has tested well in internal pilots and is expected to improve merchant conversion ahead of BFCM, but it touches high-volume message delivery and could affect reliability if released too aggressively.
You are the engineering manager leading execution across a team of 9 engineers, 1 product manager, 1 designer, and shared support from SRE and data science. Leadership wants the feature available to 30 enterprise merchants within 8 weeks so Sales can position it in Q3 renewals. The challenge is that the current optimization service has only been validated on low-volume traffic and has not yet been hardened for peak-scale delivery.
Key Stakeholders
- VP of Product wants a visible launch before the enterprise roadmap review
- SRE lead wants reliability protections and a conservative rollout
- Sales leader wants named lighthouse merchants live before renewal conversations
- Compliance and Deliverability teams want zero increase in opt-out complaints or carrier issues
Constraints
- Fixed timeline: 8 weeks to first external launch
- Budget: $120K for incremental infra and contractor QA only
- Team capacity: 2 engineers are already committed 30% to production support
- Dependency: updated experimentation and kill-switch controls in Attentive AI platform arrive in week 4
- Reliability target: no more than 0.2 percentage point drop in message send success rate during rollout
Complications
- A top enterprise merchant has requested inclusion in the first wave, but their traffic volume is 4x larger than any pilot merchant.
- The VP of Product is pushing for a broad launch at week 8, while SRE recommends a phased rollout extending into week 10.
- A recent carrier incident has made the Deliverability team more risk-sensitive about any change to message timing behavior.
Your Task
- Build an execution plan for the 8-week launch, including where you would trade speed for reliability.
- Define a phased rollout, launch criteria, and rollback plan for Attentive Journeys.
- Explain how you would align stakeholders with conflicting priorities.
- Identify the top risks, mitigations, and decision points that would determine whether to narrow scope or delay launch.
- Specify the success metrics you would monitor during the first 30 days after launch.
