Recent updates from the engineering team include several enhancements to the Chalk platform, notably the introduction of a gRPC engine for improved performance, and the ability to use SQL in offline queries for more efficient data retrieval. Role-based access control has been expanded, allowing for more granular permissions at the data source and feature levels. Users can now track incremental resolver statuses via CLI, and deployment tags have been introduced for better environment management. Heartbeat monitoring now detects and marks long-running queries as failed if they hang, while new integrations with Trino and Spanner, improved search and filtering in the feature catalog, and enhancements to SQL resolvers and error reporting contribute to a more robust and user-friendly experience.