Stuck in bad communication with PM in sprints

Apple
watgoingon

Go to company page Apple

watgoingon
Jul 8, 2020 9 Comments

I work as a junior MLE. My team was previously composed of an engineering manager, tech lead(TL), and a couple of engineers, including me.

My work was to research and implement ML models from scratch and deploy them to production. I also started collaborating with scientists in other teams to improve previous methods my team uses in production.
Other engineers in the group although did just basic maintenance stuff.

Now:
A product manager(PM) joined the team and started having sprints, allocating stories, and stuff.
The product manager thinks my work is easy and assigns me very fewer story points for researching/coding a model from scratch. Sometimes, even clubs my story with my other stories. Then the PM asks me you seem to have very few story points; take over stuff from other people!

Now, I cannot be blunt and say my work involves much more complication than other engineers. Like I automate a lot of stuff in my models. Other engineers use someone else's model and do this stuff manually.

What I tried?
Then I asked the TL to give me some of his stuff. But TL wants me to concentrate on ML as no one else in the team knows it, and that he can do his stuff faster than me.

I don't know what to do. In the last few meetings, it has gotten worse. I work on weekends, day/night, and there is no accountability for my work. What I get is you don't have enough story points.

Status:
I just joined the team/company this year, so I can't change. Please help me with any advice. The PM seems to be a nice person to me; I think the PM lacks knowledge in ML stuff.

Apologies for the long post. :)

comments

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TOP 9 Comments
  • eBay
    guru-ji

    Go to company page eBay

    guru-ji
    Ask your TL and PM to learn the agile process correctly. Only you as the assignee should tell how many story points each task is. PM should be in no business scoping work and putting story points. Its just direct conflict of interest since every PM wants to get things shipped faster and engineer has to balance quality and tech debt too.
    Jul 8, 2020 2
  • Oracle / Eng
    prepi

    Go to company page Oracle Eng

    prepi
    Why would PM assign tasks?

    Also, engineer should come up with story points not PM or TPM. Escalate this to your manager
    Jul 8, 2020 4
    • Apple
      watgoingon

      Go to company page Apple

      watgoingon
      OP
      That sounds like a great idea. I only have it once a month. I will set up a meeting with the manager. Would it be ok to set it up on pretense story sizing?
      I don't want to sound like I am complaining. But at the same time, I am quite fed up with this.
      Jul 8, 2020
    • Oracle / Eng
      prepi

      Go to company page Oracle Eng

      prepi
      Ofc. Just schedule 1:1 you have something to diacuss
      Jul 8, 2020
  • Grab
    didjdkmsdk

    Go to company page Grab

    didjdkmsdk
    The right approach is for Pm to communicate the requirements and the priorities. Engineering manager should draw the cut line and assign stories. Engineer and engineering manager together can figure out points. Seems like your PM is trying to play EM.
    Jul 9, 2020 0