Balance Refactoring With Momentum AI Launch

Project Background

automotiveMastermind is preparing a Q3 release of a new Momentum AI Next Best Action workflow inside the Mastermind platform for dealer sales teams. The feature is expected to improve rep adoption and increase campaign engagement, but the engineering team has also identified growing technical debt in the shared recommendation service and deployment pipeline that powers parts of Momentum and dealer-facing insights.

You are the Engineering Manager for a team of 10 engineers, 1 product manager, 1 designer, and shared QA support. Leadership wants the new workflow launched in 12 weeks to support committed dealer pilots, while platform reliability has slipped: deployment time has grown from 18 minutes to 52 minutes, there were 3 Sev-2 incidents in the last 6 weeks, and engineers estimate 5-6 weeks of refactoring and infrastructure work would materially reduce risk.

Key Stakeholders

The VP of Product wants the dealer-facing launch on time. The Director of Engineering wants to reduce incident risk and improve developer velocity. Sales has promised the feature to 8 pilot dealer groups by quarter-end. Customer Success wants a stable rollout because two recent incidents affected dealer trust. These priorities are not fully aligned.

Constraints

• Timeline: 12 weeks to pilot launch
• Team capacity: 10 engineers, but 2 are tied up 25% on production support
• Budget: No additional headcount; up to $60K for vendor or tooling spend
• Dependencies: shared data platform team can support only 1 integration window in Weeks 4-5
• Current backlog: 14 open tech debt items, of which 4 are high-risk

Complications

1. A principal engineer who owns the recommendation service will be out for 2 weeks in Week 6-7.
2. The VP of Sales is pushing for all 8 dealer groups at launch rather than a phased rollout.
3. One high-risk refactor touches the same services needed for the new workflow.

Your Task

1. Propose how you would prioritize refactoring, infrastructure work, and feature delivery across the 12 weeks.
2. Define what work must happen before launch versus what can be deferred.
3. Create a stakeholder communication and decision framework for handling trade-offs.
4. Outline launch criteria, rollout sequencing, and rollback triggers.
5. Identify the top execution risks and mitigation plans.