Quarterly update · engineering
Two of four are landing, one is late, and one we should stop
Nine weeks in, three to go. The honest read is below, including the objective I would cancel today rather than carry into Q4.
If you read one paragraph
Reliability and the billing rewrite are on track and will land. Self-serve onboarding is two weeks late for a reason we understand and have fixed. The partner API has consumed nine weeks and one engineer and has no committed customer — I am recommending we stop it and move that engineer onto onboarding.
The numbers
Scope, planned against delivered
Solid is what shipped. Dashed is where the plan said we would be.
Objective by objective
| Objective | Status | Progress | The read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability 99.9% uptime, p95 under 250ms | On track |
92% |
Both targets already met and held for six weeks. The remaining work is the runbook, not the system. |
| Billing rewrite Replace the invoice engine | On track |
78% |
Migration dry run passed on a copy of production last Thursday. Cutover is scheduled for week 11 with a rollback that we have tested. |
| Self-serve onboarding 40% activation | Two weeks late |
54% |
We built the flow before we had the funnel data, then rebuilt it once the data arrived. Instrumentation now lands before design on every step. Activation will not reach 40% this quarter; 35% is realistic. |
| Partner API Three integrations live | Recommend stopping |
22% |
Nine weeks, one engineer, no partner has committed to build against it. The design is sound and will keep. This is the recommendation the meeting should be about. |
Why I am recommending we stop the partner API rather than slow it down
A slowed project still holds an engineer, still needs review, and still shows up as red every month. The design work is done and written down, so restarting it costs a week rather than nine. The reason to stop is not that it is going badly — it is that we have no evidence anyone is waiting for it, and onboarding has evidence stacked against it.
What I need from this meeting
-
1
A decision on the partner API
Stop it and move the engineer to onboarding, or keep it and accept 30% activation. I am not asking for more people; I am asking which of the two we want.
Needed by 6 September, so the move happens with three weeks left rather than one.
-
2
Agreement that activation lands at 35%, not 40%
Said now rather than discovered in the Q3 close. The path to 40% is real but it runs through Q4.
Needed today.
-
3
A date for the billing cutover you are comfortable with
Week 11 is our preference. It is the last week that leaves room to roll back inside the quarter. If finance wants it after quarter end, that is fine, but we should say so now.
Needed by 10 September.