Hardware TPM Role at Facebook Infra
hello Blind, i would appreciate some insights on HW TPM role in FB infra. Does the role get to drove roadmaps and dive deep technically or is it mostly an execution and schedule monkey?
what is your YOE
14 Yoe
Churn and burn
I think that's up to you. I'm a pm driving deliverables and make it a point to keep my Linux Dev tools and access to the repo etc... I am involved in architecture and drive technical working meetings... I'm not a schedule monkey but get shit done. Our subsystems are so large that I cannot go deep in the implementation but I'm certainly good at narrowing down definition and implementation guidelines. In a program as large as the one I'm working on, there's no room to let things slide. Smaller programs can be more flexible
Thank you. That’s perfect response. Have you had an opportunity to drive requirements and roadmaps?
Yes, driving requirements from investigation, definition through validation and defect resolution etc... If it's simple enough I make it a point to make the fix and check it in myself. One caveat, I have been losing my programming skills at a steady rate as I'm not doing it daily... And it's annoying. Also, you deal with lots more annoying politics. Choose your path wisely
Thank you again. Politics is an unavoidable side effect of the TPM role. As long as I get to own a product end to end and can do what needs to happen to make it successful, I would be happy.
I’m always amazed at TPMs that think they should drive roadmaps. Maybe they exist but I’ve never met one that has enough domain knowledge, technical/leadership experience to do this.
I think there are two aspects of this: 1. Is there someone skilled enough hired at the role? 2. Does the company allow the role to act in way to perform the function? I.e are they are empowered? My question is to the latter. Assuming there is enough experience and skill set, are TPMs ideas valued?
The latter
Thanks. Have you done that role? In mPK?