<aside> 💡 Servus,
here's your take-home challenge! We have chosen a task that accompanies us again and again, but is not necessarily our everyday work. We have tried very hard to make the task understandable, but it is still possible that some aspects are not quite clear. In this case please contact us so that we can iron this out.
We wish you much success and look forward to hearing from you again soon!
</aside>
As a team we manage the online storefront of a customer in an interim setup. This means that we do not have a pure client-contractor relationship, but work with common project goals of the client (e.g. increasing the conversion rate through various initiatives). Your role is that of Tech Lead with a focus towards the customer to prepare and make technical decisions.
In this situation, the team has found that the search in the (legacy) shop is not performed optimally and is looking for options to make the search better for the end customer. At the same time, the customer wants additional features that the existing search does not provide by itself. Currently Solr is used here, but the development team is not familiar with it and the programming language.
The Solr search could be extended and deployed to better servers that respond faster. It may be necessary to configure the index better, which requires knowledge of Solr's internals.
A different search could be introduced. Since your development team has already had good experience with the SaaS search engine Algolia, this product is chosen as an alternative candidate by the team.
Following discussions with Algolia, an annual package was offered for €200,000, which includes all the enterprise features of Algolia. The costs for the Solr expansion by external providers are unknown.
Since the introduction of Algolia requires higher expenses and a long commitment (in terms of a long contract period), this decision has to be made at a higher level of the customer. However, there is no technical contact person there, so as a Tech Lead you have to prepare the basis for an informed decision. This includes in particular looking at the possible solutions from a business perspective, i.e.: Why or under what circumstances should the use of Algolia be worthwhile?
Your responsibility now is to make preparations for a decision that will be made by the sales manager of the customer. He will base his decision on the insights you present to him.