Summary (TPM perspective)
I propose reorganizing into a Platform Product Group focused on API reliability, developer experience (DX), and platform enablement. Goal: increase throughput, reduce cycle time, and improve dev satisfaction.
Team composition & headcount
- Platform Product Management: 1 Senior TPM (1.0 FTE) — product lead for platform roadmap
- Platform Engineering: 2 Tech Leads (2.0 FTE), 6 Senior/IC engineers (6.0 FTE) — core platform work
- Developer Experience: 1 DX Engineer (1.0 FTE), 1 Developer Advocate (1.0 FTE) — docs, SDKs, onboarding
- SRE/Observability: 1 SRE Lead (1.0 FTE), 2 SREs (2.0 FTE) — reliability, SLIs/SLAs
- QA/Test Automation: 1 QA Lead (1.0 FTE), 2 Automation Engineers (2.0 FTE)
Total: 18 FTEs
Reporting relationships
- VP Engineering → Platform Product Lead (Senior TPM) and SRE Lead dotted to VP SRE if exists
- Tech Leads/reporting: Platform Eng engineers report to Tech Leads; Tech Leads dotted to TPM for roadmap/prioritization
- DX and QA report to TPM for product priorities; SRE co-owned between TPM and Ops.
Quarter 1 OKRs (stabilize & unblock)
- O1: Reduce platform-induced PR cycle time by 30% (KR1: implement CI parallelization; KR2: reduce build flakiness to <3%);
- O2: Raise dev satisfaction NPS from X to X+15 (KR1: ship improved onboarding docs; KR2: hold 4 office hours/quarter);
- O3: Establish observability baseline (KR: define SLIs for top 5 services; dashboards & alerts)
Quarter 2 OKRs (scale & enable)
- O1: Increase feature throughput +40% (KR1: reduce mean time to merge by 25%; KR2: add 3 reusable platform components/sdk packages)
- O2: Achieve 99.9% platform availability for core APIs
- O3: Developer enablement — 80% of internal teams using new SDKs + automated CI templates
Phased transition plan (protect delivery)
- Phase 0 (2 weeks): Stakeholder alignment, appoint Senior TPM, freeze no-regression delivery windows.
- Phase 1 (4–6 weeks): Move reporting for DX/QA to TPM; create runway by triaging backlog and quick wins (CI flakiness, docs). Pair Tech Leads with incumbent managers (shadow).
- Phase 2 (6–10 weeks): Full reassignments; hire critical roles (SRE, DX); run dual-reporting with measurable success metrics.
- Phase 3 (ongoing): Stabilize SOPs, iterate OKRs every quarter, transfer knowledge; preserve delivery by limiting scope changes during each transition wave.
Why this works: centralizes product ownership, creates clear tech/product partnership, invests in DX and SRE to remove developer blockers—improving throughput and satisfaction measurably.
