Project Background

You are the TPM for ShopSwift, a top-10 US e-commerce marketplace (~22M monthly active users, $4.5B annual GMV). Over the last two quarters, ShopSwift has invested heavily in a “1-tap checkout” flow on iOS and Android to reduce cart abandonment. The feature is already live to 60% of traffic and is scheduled to hit 100% before Black Friday (6 weeks away).

Two days ago, the CEO forwarded an email from a strategic partner: FlexPay, a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) provider that drives ~18% of ShopSwift’s checkout volume and disproportionately serves high-LTV users (repeat buyers, higher AOV). FlexPay’s head of partnerships reports that a subset of users are experiencing a silent failure during payment authorization in the new 1-tap flow. The failure doesn’t always show an error; instead, it returns users to the cart. FlexPay is threatening to pause co-marketing and deprioritize ShopSwift in their app placements unless you address it quickly.

Customer Support corroborates the issue: in the last 72 hours, refund requests and “can’t complete purchase” tickets from FlexPay users are up 35%. Data Science estimates the bug is impacting only 0.6–1.0% of total checkouts, but because it hits high-value users, the projected revenue impact is $1.2M–$1.8M per week if it persists through Black Friday. The engineering team believes the root cause is likely related to token refresh + SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) step-up handling in certain edge cases.

Stakeholder Landscape (Competing Priorities)

• VP of Product (Checkout): Wants 1-tap checkout at 100% before Black Friday; believes the overall conversion lift is worth it. Concerned that rolling back will sacrifice the quarter’s headline metric.
• Head of Partnerships: Needs a concrete plan to reassure FlexPay within 48 hours; worried about losing marketing placement and negotiated fee discounts.
• Director of Engineering (Mobile): Has a fixed roadmap; the mobile team is already committed to a loyalty revamp and a fraud mitigation sprint. Pushes back on “heroics” and wants clear scope.
• Risk & Compliance: Concerned that any workaround could violate BNPL disclosures or SCA requirements; prefers conservative changes and strong audit logs.
• Customer Support Ops: Wants immediate mitigation to reduce ticket volume and protect NPS; requests better user-facing messaging.

You are asked to lead an execution plan that reflects “going above and beyond for the user” while still operating like a disciplined launch owner: you must balance speed, safety, and stakeholder alignment.

Constraints

What You Need to Deliver (Candidate Tasks)

Produce the following as if you were walking an interview panel through your real plan:

1. A user-first mitigation strategy for the next 48 hours

   • What do you do immediately to reduce user harm (e.g., targeted rollback, kill switch, messaging, support workflows)?
   • How do you decide between “fix forward” vs “rollback” given Black Friday pressure?

2. A 6-week execution plan (critical path) to fully resolve the issue

   • Include milestones, owners, dependencies, and how you will validate the fix end-to-end.
   • Call out what you will de-scope or delay (and how you’ll get buy-in).

3. A stakeholder alignment plan

   • How will you communicate trade-offs to the VP Product, Eng Director, Partnerships, and Compliance?
   • What is your escalation path if Sales/Partnerships demands a risky quick fix?

4. A launch and rollback plan for the fix

   • Define how you will ramp (e.g., % rollout, segmentation), what dashboards/alerts you need, and rollback triggers.

5. Success criteria and metrics

   • Define what “fixed” means, including user experience metrics, payment success metrics, and partner satisfaction.

Complications (Realistic Curveballs)

1. Key engineer availability risk: The iOS engineer who originally implemented the token refresh logic is scheduled for PTO starting next week for 10 days. Documentation is incomplete.
2. Partner-driven scope change: FlexPay offers to help but requests you add a new callback field to support better error attribution on their side—this would require backend changes and a partner certification step that typically takes 2–3 weeks.
3. Conflicting executive narrative: The CEO wants to publicly tout 1-tap checkout in an upcoming earnings call. A rollback could create internal political friction.

Your answer should demonstrate how you go above and beyond for impacted users (especially high-value users who are failing silently) while still executing with strong roadmapping, trade-offs, risk management, and launch discipline.