[Incubation] Engineering Budget Renewal Oct '23 - Mar '24

Proposal Discussion
1

Engineering Workstream Renewal, Oct '23 - Mar '24

Abstract / Overview

This proposal adopts [SCP-92 Definition of Workstream Leader](https://snapshot.org/#/shapeshiftdao.eth/proposal/0x3529a9ab550387d1eedf34d0ba26b5c80ed1c04a74a3c407d9b06a6ea90325ab).

This proposal is to continue to fund the Engineering Workstream’s budget from October 1st, 2023 through March 31th, 2024 inclusive (6 months).

The ShapeShift DAO relies on the Engineering Workstream to maintain the code base, undertake core engineering work to enable new features, and to provide architectural oversight and technical leadership as we continue to execute the roadmap as defined by the Product Workstream.

Motivation

Previous proposal

The Engineering workstream came in under budget of the previously approved proposal.

  • June $90,667 (included humblehound)

  • July $75,667

  • August $82,567 (included $6900 QR bug reimbursement)

  • September $75,667

Total labor and contingency spend of $324,567 USDC against an approved [$417,633](https://snapshot.org/#/shapeshiftdao.eth/proposal/0xdbd3051cd544def2e73c052596a44e66c519e9f8b94b827afeef385e1bd5d892)

Completed deliverables

  • Gnosis chain support including swapping

  • Foxatars project and support of mercle team

  • FOX Missions page

  • NFT support via OpenSea and Zapper

  • Gas estimation revamp

  • Full rearchitecture of swapper including multi hop trade support

  • THORChain Streaming Swaps

  • Trade time estimates

  • Fiat ramp updates and maintenance

  • Coinbase wallet

  • Chatwoot support widget

  • Mobile app update

  • Clear cache function for support

  • Charka UI major version upgrade

  • Yat project completion

  • Manual/advanced trade slippage support

  • Major using facing performance improvements across all platforms, including render and network

  • Add trade price impact warnings

  • Add time estimate to trades

  • FOX Farming V7

  • Various Mixpanel data reporting

  • Trade route analysis to negotiate vendor pricing

  • Backend infrastructure dashboard at monitoring.shapeshift.com

  • Specification, architecture and implementation of exchange.shapeshift.com first milestone

  • WalletConnect V2 as a dapp (ongoing)

Team

Mandate

This proposal seeks to have the Engineering Workstream be the sole maintainers with discretion over CODEOWNERS, permissions and administrative rights of the ShapeShift GitHub namespace. The billing account shall be controlled by the Fox Foundation.

This is to ensure the DAO maintains a high standard of code quality, velocity, reduced regressions, and has a single core team acting as maintainers responsible for the codebase.

The Engineering Workstream will work with external contributors to ensure contributions can be made expeditiously while not compromising quality, patterns or stability.

Budget spreadsheet

The details below expand upon the [budget spreadsheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lS0dA32rYdEpKnxOGKhSqs3ba7ffHtgX-nIKdvEDJIM)

Recurring costs

Labor

  • Any contributor reserves the right to take any portion of salary in FOX and locked varieties thereof.

Infrastructure

The Fox Foundation covers the costs for infrastructure that powers the entire backend of the open source platform and mobile app, and the Engineering Workstream is not requesting funds to cover these costs in this proposal.

Non-recurring costs

Miscellaneous

The budget contains a line item for $5,000 USDC of discretionary funds which may be used for travel, conferences, retreats etc, at engineering’s discretion.

The line item above is provisional, and any unspent funds will be returned to the DAO.

This budget seeks approval for the commitment of $5,000 USDC for non-recurring costs.

Contingency

Unforeseen costs will arise, and 10% of the USDC subtotal is requested accordingly.

The budget seeks approval for $47,700 for contingency to be spent judiciously at the workstream’s discretion, shall it be required.

Variance

Unused funds from any budget category will be returned to the DAO at the end of the budget cycle.

In the event that the Engineering Workstream requires more funds, a separate governance proposal shall be raised.

Deliverables

Goals

The Engineering Workstream continues on from the previously approved proposal(s).

The Engineering Workstream is the “how”, rather than the “what”. The Product Workstream has the mandate of “what” is to be built, the Engineering Workstream has the mandate of the “how” it is built.

The workstream exists to execute on Product Workstream’s roadmap.

Reporting

The Engineering Workstream will report progress against these goals via the following methods

  • availability via Discord, covering most time zones

  • weekly product/engineering public meetings

  • weekly governance calls

  • on demand for any specific deliverable

Should the community request other reasonable forms of reporting they will be considered on their merits.

Benefits

The DAO delivers a product to increase ease of use of the multi-chain multi-wallet multi-protocol universe that we find ourselves in. It is the Engineering effort that builds our product. We need Engineering in order to thrive.

Drawbacks

Engineering labor is the most expensive component of the DAO’s budget. Any aspect that does not seem appropriate to serve the greater needs of the DAO should be criticized.

Vote

FOR: Fund the Engineering Workstream from October 1st 2023 - March 31st 2024 for $524,700 USDC, with 0xdef1cafe as the Workstream Leader.

AGAINST: Do not fund the Engineering Workstream beyond October 1st 2023.