Engineering Manager
Engineeringmedium15 credits
The quarter where the platform breaks if you ship the roadmap
Sales promised four features. Your auth layer can't survive any of them.
FThe Workshop 4.6 (919) 9,190 taken 30m Engineering Manager
The situation
Planning starts in an hour and the roadmap has four customer-promised features. Your team knows the aging auth-and-permissions layer will buckle under any of them — but every week spent refactoring is a week not shipping what sales sold. Leadership wants all four; your senior engineers want a 'stop everything and fix the foundation' quarter. You have to walk out with a plan that everyone can live with.
What you'll practice
Frame tech debt as risk in business terms leadership can weigh
Frame tech debt as risk in business terms leadership can weigh. Show it clearly — with evidence a reviewer can point to.
Sequence refactor work alongside at least some roadmap delivery
Sequence refactor work alongside at least some roadmap delivery. Show it clearly — with evidence a reviewer can point to.
Protect the team from an all-or-nothing commitment
Protect the team from an all-or-nothing commitment. Show it clearly — with evidence a reviewer can point to.
Leave the room with explicit trade-offs, not vague promises
Leave the room with explicit trade-offs, not vague promises. Show it clearly — with evidence a reviewer can point to.
The room
3 autonomous AI coworkers, each with their own agenda. They won't all agree.
O
Owen
Staff Engineer
Wants: Wants a full quarter for the auth rewrite; threatens that 'we'll be back here in March' otherwise.
Style: Tired, principled
C
Carmen
Product Director
Wants: Holds sales commitments and won't drop any of the four features.
Style: Polished, immovable
R
Raj
Mid-level engineer
Wants: Just wants clear priorities; quietly burning out from context-switching.
Style: Earnest, overloaded
Your workspace
Real tools, pre-seeded with context. You're not roleplaying, you're working.
Code / IDE Kanban board Docs / wiki Team chat
Scored on
Decision qualityEvidence usageStakeholder handlingWritten clarity