Capstone project for From Engineer to Tech Lead
Lead the Store app's next two quarters
You have just become tech lead of Mangrove Market's Store app team: five engineers (Sam, Mira, Joel, Tara and Hugo), with Imran as product manager and Ken as engineering manager. The Store app runs on about 1,000 handheld scanners in about 320 stores, and a stock count fails today whenever the scanner loses Wi-Fi, which happens in roughly one count in six. The next big feature is offline stock counts that sync safely, piloted in Ama's store, then 20 stores, then all 320. Write the plan you would share with your team, Imran and Ken: a two-page technical vision for the next two quarters, a design doc for offline stock counts with the alternatives you rejected, a delivery plan of thin slices with a capacity calculation and a forecast range, your team's working agreements for code review and AI coding tools, a technical-debt list with the cost of each item, and a delegation and mentoring plan for each engineer. Pick a real team of your own instead if you lead one, and say so.
What you hand in
- A two-page technical vision: current state, where the system is going in two quarters, principles, non-goals and how you will know it worked
- A design doc for offline stock counts (or your own team's next big feature) with goals, non-goals, the design, two alternatives considered, risks and a rollout plan
- A delivery plan: thin slices that each deliver value, a capacity calculation, a forecast as a range, and a risk list with spikes
- Working agreements: code review rules, the team's rules for AI coding tools, and a technical-debt list with the cost of each item and what you will pay first
- A delegation and mentoring plan for each engineer, and a one-page agreement with the product manager and engineering manager on who owns what
Check your work
Tick each item when your project meets it. Be strict: this is the rubric the reviewer uses.
- The vision links the technical work to product outcomes, such as fewer failed counts and better stock accuracy, and names what the team will not do
- The design doc compares at least two real alternatives on the same criteria and explains the choice, including how offline data syncs and resolves conflicts
- Each slice delivers something a user or the team can use or learn from on its own, and the first slice is a thin end-to-end path
- The forecast is a range built from a capacity calculation that includes holidays, on-call and support, and the top risks have a spike or an owner
- Delegation grows people: each engineer gets real ownership at a stated delegation level, with a mentoring goal and how progress will be checked
- Technical-debt items carry a cost in hours, incidents or risk, and the plan says what is paid first and why
- The AI coding tool rules say what may be shared, that the author owns and understands every line, and how quality is checked
- The ownership agreement with product and engineering management is specific about decisions, and includes how disagreements are escalated
0 of 8 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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