You are the Engineering Manager at a B2B recruiting software company whose platform helps customers automate sourcing, screening, and interview coordination. The business has grown from $4M to $11M ARR in 18 months, serves 220 mid-market customers, and plans to move upmarket into enterprise over the next year while also expanding Beacon Talent's candidate screening and workflow automation capabilities. Engineering has 18 developers across platform, integrations, and product squads, but release frequency has fallen from weekly to every three weeks, customer-reported bugs are up 35% over two quarters, and 28% of roadmap capacity is being consumed by enterprise-specific requests from sales. Two competitors have recently launched AI-assisted recruiting features, and leadership expects engineering to support a target of $20M ARR within 18 months without increasing headcount by more than 25%. You need to determine how to prepare the team and operating model for the next stage of growth.
How would you assess whether the team is ready for the next stage of growth, and what strategy would you recommend to ensure engineering can support the company’s product, customer, and revenue goals over the next 12 to 18 months?