Instagram is considering launching a new Feed feature that adds richer interactive recommendation cards in the Home Feed. Early internal testing shows the feature increases meaningful engagement, but it also increases median feed load time by 10% on mobile. You are the PM leading the launch decision and execution plan for Instagram Feed, working with a cross-functional team of 11 people across product, engineering, data science, design, and site reliability.
The feature has executive attention because Feed engagement growth has slowed for two consecutive quarters, and leadership wants a decision before the next quarterly planning cycle in 8 weeks. The team has already built an MVP and run a small employee dogfood test, but no external launch plan has been approved.
The VP of Product for Instagram wants engagement gains this quarter. The Engineering Director for Instagram Feed is concerned about regressions in app performance and crash rates. The Infra/SRE lead is worried about higher backend request volume during peak traffic. The Ads PM is concerned that slower feed loads could reduce ad impressions in lower-end Android markets.
You have 8 weeks to make a go/no-go recommendation and, if appropriate, launch to users. Only 6 client engineers and 2 backend engineers are available, with no additional headcount. The project has a $150K budget for experimentation, performance optimization, and monitoring. The feature depends on one ranking service update, one mobile app release train, and capacity approval from Meta infrastructure. Current baseline median feed load time is 1.8 seconds; p95 is 3.9 seconds.