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Capstone project for Engineering Management

Your first 90 days as engineering manager

After a reorganisation you manage Mangrove Market's Store app and Partner app teams: 11 engineers with two tech leads, Sam and Dara. The Partner app team formed this year to take work over from the agency Lagoon Digital, and a senior backend role for payments and invoicing is open. Felix, a mid-level engineer on the Partner app team, has missed review comments and two deadlines over three months, and nobody has told him clearly. The Partner app's mobile-wallet invoice payments are promised for 1 December, before the festival rush, and are about three weeks behind because Lagoon's invoicing API changed late. Ken, head of engineering, is your manager. Write your 90-day plan and the key artefacts you would use. If you manage a real team, you may use it instead, with names and details changed.

What you hand in

  1. A 90-day plan with milestones at day 30, 60 and 90: the listening tour, 1:1 cadence, team charters and one early win per team
  2. A hiring scorecard for the senior backend role and an interview plan: stages, the competency each interviewer owns, questions with scoring anchors and how the debrief decides
  3. A performance conversation plan for Felix: the written expectations, the opening of the first conversation, the support offered, the time frame and how it is documented
  4. The delivery-risk options for 1 December, as you would bring them to Ken and the head of partner sales, with your recommendation
  5. A team health dashboard proposal: which delivery and developer-experience measures, how they are collected and how the teams use them

Check your work

Tick each item when your project meets it. Be strict: this is the rubric the reviewer uses.

  • The plan starts with listening and learning: 1:1s with every engineer early, the same questions for everyone, and no big changes before the facts are in
  • The hiring loop is structured: a scorecard of outcomes and competencies, the same questions and anchors for every candidate, written scores before the debrief, and a work sample close to the real job
  • The Felix plan is specific (dated examples, not labels), starts by finding the cause, offers real support, sets a clear time frame and is documented, with HR involved before any formal step
  • The 1 December options show scope, date and people trade-offs honestly, account for the cost of adding people late, and end with a recommendation
  • Health metrics are used for learning by the teams, never to rank or review individuals, and include at least one developer-experience signal besides DORA
  • Team charters or an ownership map make the boundary with Lagoon Digital and between the two teams clear
  • The plan names how each tech lead is supported and how the manager protects time for 1:1s and hiring

0 of 7 checked

Model answer

The model answer opens once your capstone passes the review, so you can compare your work with an outline of a strong submission.

Hand in your capstone

Your links are checked automatically, then the work is scored against the rubric above, item by item, with comments. A pass counts toward the course certificate and shows on your profile.

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