CurrentNorthstar LabsQ4 FY26
PR
Capability gap

Data Platform capacity gap

Warehouse migration · gap opens September 28, 2026 · owner Priya Raghunathan, VP Engineering

18% below required capacityConfidence: high

Situation

Warehouse migration · committed in the Q4 FY26 delivery plan

Data Platform will be 3.0 FTE short of the 16.5 FTE the Q4 migration needs — 18% of the plan — from September 28, 2026.

How it got here

The Q4 delivery plan committed the warehouse migration on August 19, 2026, raising required capacity from 14.0 to 16.5 FTE. Five days later, Arun Patel — the only engineer on the team with delivered migration work at level 4 or above — gave notice, effective September 26, 2026. That leaves 13.5 FTE available against 16.5 FTE required.

Required
16.5 FTE
Approved Q4 plan
Available from Sep 28
13.5 FTE
14.5 today, less 1.0 on Sep 26
Gap
3.0 FTE
18% of required capacity
Required vs available capacity
1314151617Required 16.5 FTEdeparturedelivery startsSep 2Oct 1Nov 1Dec 1Cutover
Available capacityRequired capacityRemaining gap

Why Current flagged this

Four inputs, each traceable to a record you can open. Expand any row to see the source and why you have access to it.

  • The approved Q4 delivery plan increased required capacity to 16.5 FTE.

    Q4 FY26 delivery planPLAN-FY26-Q4 · rev 7Sep 2 · 08:41
    Record

    Warehouse migration moved from “scoped” to “committed” on Aug 19, adding schema translation and backfill validation to the Data Platform workstream. Required capacity rose from 14.0 to 16.5 FTE against a Dec 19 cutover.

    Source

    Q4 FY26 delivery plan PLAN-FY26-Q4 · rev 7

    Headcount Planning

    Why you can see this

    You are the plan owner for Data Platform. Delivery plans are visible to the owning VP and Finance business partner.

  • A senior engineer departure removes 1.0 FTE on Sep 26.

    Employment recordEMP-4417 · offboardingSep 2 · 08:41
    Record

    Arun Patel (Senior Data Engineer, E5) submitted resignation on Aug 24 with a last day of Sep 26. He is the only engineer on the team with delivered warehouse-migration work at level 4 or above.

    Source

    Employment record EMP-4417 · offboarding

    Employee Graph

    Why you can see this

    You are two levels above this employee in the reporting chain. Offboarding dates are visible to the management line; compensation and personal details are not included in this view.

  • The open requisition is unlikely to add capacity before the gap opens.

    Position 2291REQ-2291 · approvedSep 2 · 08:41
    Derived

    Position 2291 is approved and budgeted, with a target start of Nov 16. Median time-to-fill across 7 comparable senior data roles in the last 24 months is 11 weeks, followed by a 6-week ramp. Starting from Sep 2, that lands material capacity in mid-November at the earliest.

    Source

    Position 2291 REQ-2291 · approved

    Recruiting

    Why you can see this

    You are the hiring manager of record for this requisition.

  • Two engineers outside the team have adjacent skills.

    Skill graph — Data Platform adjacencySKILL-ADJ-0912Sep 2 · 08:41
    Derived

    Maya Chen and Daniel Ortiz both have delivered work in pipeline orchestration and dimensional modeling. Adjacency is computed from delivered work and learning records only. Performance ratings, demographic attributes and compensation are excluded from this model.

    Source

    Skill graph — Data Platform adjacency SKILL-ADJ-0912

    Employee Graph + Learning

    Why you can see this

    Internal mobility candidates are visible to hiring managers with an approved position in the same job family.

What Current knows, assumes and does not know

The assumptions are where this plan is most likely to be wrong. Each one names what happens if it is.

Known

Read from approved records.

  • Required capacity for the migration workstream is 16.5 FTE.

    Approved Q4 FY26 delivery plan, rev 7

  • Available capacity after Sep 26 is 13.5 FTE.

    Data Platform roster and confirmed offboarding

  • Position 2291 is approved with budget of $196K–$238K.

    FY26 headcount plan, R&D line 41

  • Two MSA vendors are active for contract data engineering.

    Procurement vendor register

Assumed

Modeled from history. Expand for what breaks if wrong.

  • Median time-to-fill of 11 weeks holds for this role.

    7 comparable senior data roles closed in the last 24 months

    If wrong: If time-to-fill runs 4 weeks longer, hiring contributes nothing inside the window and the contractor becomes load-bearing.

  • A redeployed engineer reaches 0.9 FTE effectiveness after a 6-week learning path.

    4 of 5 comparable internal redeployments in this org since FY24

    If wrong: At 0.6 FTE effectiveness the residual gap widens from 6% to roughly 9%.

  • Contractor rate holds at the midpoint of the current MSA band.

    Two vendor quotes refreshed in July 2026

    If wrong: At the top of the band the plan costs $160K and breaches a $150K ceiling.

Not known

Outside the data, and left there. Expand for impact.

  • Whether Maya Chen wants this assignment.

    This is a conversation with her and her manager, not a system decision. If she declines, Daniel Ortiz is the modeled alternate at lower adjacency.

  • Whether the migration scope holds through October.

    A scope increase of more than 1 FTE would put the plan back below its coverage target.

  • Whether the departing engineer’s undocumented context is recoverable.

    Not modeled as capacity. Knowledge transfer is tracked separately in the outcome monitor.