15 years experience at Google, Amazon, Microsoft as PM, TPM, SWE. On my way to FIRE. AMA

Thanks for your question! PM and TPM are very different career ladders. PM owns the product as a whole (vision, features, etc) and TPM owns the project execution (timelines, risks, communication, etc). You should start by doing your research on both and figuring out which one you prefer the most. I've blogged about the differences at https://engineerseekingfire.com/differences-between-product-program-engineering-marketing-managers/ I'll be generalizing quite a bit, this is a very quick-and-dirty guideline to help you. You should become a: 1. TPM, if you enjoy working with the engineering teams, enjoy creating time schedules, coordination, project management, etc 2. PM, if you want to define the product, go a little further away from execution/coding, enjoy presenting at conferences, working with non-engineering teams, e.g. sales, legal, marketing, etc. It's relatively easy for a SWE to switch to TPM. Most companies that I know of, would directly allow you to interview directly. I know a lot of SWEs, who prepared for the TPM interview and switched to TPM. It's much more difficult for a SWE to transition to PM. This is a much bigger jump. You will need to stop focusing on the technical details an the implementation (i.e. coding) and focus on the customer (i.e. how will you create something that is valuable and find the best way to bring it to market). The easiest way for this would be to try and collaborate with PMs in your existing company and then maybe take over some of their responsibilities. Another way would be to do an MBA and then switch (this is what I did). This might be an overkill, though. Circling back to my initial point, my advice is for you first to figure out why you want to switch (money, burned out, more prestige in other roles, etc) and then decide which role fits you most (or maybe you'll decide to stay as a SWE). Good luck!

Thanks for detailed reply!

Literally anybody can become a good PM. The important part is to play with your strengths. For example, a SWE will definitely know the tech stack better. A UX designer will be able to provide a better user experience. An analyst has more quantitative skills. Focus on showcasing them in your role and during your interviews. Also find roles that suit you most. For example, you might find that it's best to become a PM in a more mature product instead of a brand new one (this is just an example). My word of warning (which I provide to everybody who wants to switch) is that when you switch to PM, you should forget about your previous role. You are not an analyst anyone, but a PM. So, you'll have to stop focusing on your analyst tasks and focus on the PM tasks. Find the big rocks and move them. The reason that I stress about this is that it's really easy to switch back to old habits when you transition. Remember that you'll be paid to be a PM and your performance will be based on how well you perform as a PM. Another word of warning is to not feel discouraged by other PMs, because eg they come from a tech background. They will have their own blind spots. Focus on what you know best and learn from other PMs. Finally, before you decide to switch to PM, find people who have done the same jump as you want to do and talk to them. See if they can mentor you after your switch as well.

Yes, I've seen lots of people, who switched. One particular example is from a person, with whom we were working very closely at Microsoft. He was definitely not technical. And the interesting thing is that he did not even want to focus on the deep technical aspects of the work. However, he was awesome, because he knew how to build connections, talk to customers, do great presentations to showcase the value of the product and he played with all his marketing-related strengths. And the end result is that the products that he launched had great product-market fit and lots of great feedback from customers. Here are my top 3 skills to obtain: 1. Become technical: I think that being technical helps. This does not meet that you should learn how to code or to do design reviews. Instead, you should understand the competitive landscape and understand how to talk to developers. In the majority of your meetings you might be the only non-developer. You should be able to understand what they are talking about and not twiddle your fingers. Don't afraid to speak up 2. Learn how to talk to customers: As a PMM you're doing outbound marketing, whereas the PM is doing inbound work. You will need to learn from customers and understand their business needs. Then you'll have to be able to translate those needs to your developers, so that they can develop the best product. 3. Be the driver of your product: Most PMMs are not involved in product development. Instead, they are handed a product and they need to find the best way to take it to market. As a PM, you'll have to define the vision, bring new ideas to the table, sell them to execs and to your team, etc. You'll need to become a leader without any formal authority, since nobody will report to you.

Wow nicely written!

If I understood correctly, you are currently a PM at Morgan Stanley and you want to become a PM or TPM at FAANGM. Feel free to correct me, if my understanding is wrong. Here are my top tips: 1. Understand the differences between PM and TPM and decide if you want to be one or the other. Please look at a previous answer, when I pointed out the differences (or read my blog post, which has many more details - https://engineerseekingfire.com/differences-between-product-program-engineering-marketing-managers/). 2. In your current role at Morgan Stanley, you should network with as many PMs and TPMs as possible. Go to lunches, learn about their experiences, their products, what are their painpoints or their current problems, how do they solve them, how do they figure out the biggest rocks for their products. Play the "I'm a new grad" card and learn from as many of them as possible. Your most important role as a new grad is to learn (so that you can show your value to FAANGM afterwards) 3. Work on products that a) you enjoy and b) are critical to the business. Quantify your impact. Make sure that you understand what you are working on and you can talk passionately about it in an interview setting. Understand your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), so that you can "translate" what you did in the financial space to something that will be understood by somebody in the tech space. 4. Make sure that you have a great manager. Somebody, who can help you grow and cares about you. If your manager is not like that, then switch teams. 5. Find mentors, especially other people, who did the same jump as you (from the financial sector to the tech sector). Meet with them and talk with them about what helped them in this transition. Especially, if they are currently working in FAANGM they might be great referrals. 6. It doesn't hurt to read about PM and TPM interviews. What types of questions are being asked? How would you answer them today? What are your current gaps? And then find ways to build strong answers by taking the best corresponding career moves going forward

I think that this should be good enough for TPM. Here is some advice: 1. Re-write your resume in such a way that you showcase your project management experience. Did you work with large teams, organize big projects, etc? What was the impact of your work? Everything should be viewed from the TPM lense. 2. Find recruiters in LinkedIn, who are recruiting for TPM positions and have a chat with them. This will be much more effective than just submitting your resume into career portals and waiting for an answer. 3. Prepare for TPM interviews. Be ready for the upcoming interview. Take a look at my TPM interview prep guide at https://engineerseekingfire.com/how-to-prepare-for-technical-program-manager-interviews/

Thanks a lot! Appreciate the advice..

I was an ECE/CS major. However, what helped me with the transition was the MBA. I had not tried to switch to PM before the MBA, so I don't know if it would have worked out. However, while recruiting during the MBA, I had lots of PM interviews, so that definitely helped. I do think that there are lots of successful PMs, who don't have technical background. You should play with your strengths. A PM doesn't show his/her value in the team by writing code or doing design reviews. This is the job of the engineering team. A PM will show their value by being the voice of the customer and finding product/market fit. You need to have technical judgement, so that you can have a smart discussion with developers, but that's it. It'll be more important for you to spend your time talking to customers, understanding their needs and building a product that solves their problems. So, find your current strengths and use them in your favor. When a technically-oriented PM talks about bugs, low-level design and architecture, ask them about users, case studies, product KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

Was the MBA worth it (beyond landing a PM role)?

I prefer not to talk about what products I've worked at in these companies, because this could help identify me. I've worked both in the enterprise space and in the consumer space. From the enterprise space, I think that the cloud is still at Day 1 (just to use Amazon terminology) and there is a long way to go. AWS vs Azure vs GCP is a very interesting space and it's great to see how this evolve going forward. All 3 companies have so many resources behind these products and none of them want to quit from this race. From the consumer side, it's a 2-player game. I don't consider Microsoft as a consumer company anymore. All their products are enterprise-oriented. This is not bad, since this is a big bet that Satya took and it's showing great results. Yes, there is still Windows/Office/etc, but their features are driven based on business needs and not by consumer needs. Looking at the other 2 companies, I'm a huge fan of Amazon retail as a customer. It's not a coincidence that within the recent market crash due to COVID, Amazon's stock was increasing. Their supply chain is amazing. They are creating new moats around their products every day. I am also a huge Googler user. Tough to pick one: Search, Maps, Chrome, Gmail... Can't enumerate them :)

Regarding the differences between PM, TPM and EM, take a look at my blog post at https://engineerseekingfire.com/differences-between-product-program-engineering-marketing-managers/ The term "Engineering Manager" is slightly overloaded. In general, it corresponds to 2 different main tasks: 1. People manager (i.e. grow your team, mentor them, support them, assigning tasks, etc) 2. Technical manager (i.e. driving the product design, owning the development/maintenance plan, helping overcome technical problems, etc) Depending on the company, an EM might have one or both of the above roles. My top advice is that you should find what is being valued within your company and focus on that. For example, if you are expected to be a people manager, then make sure that you develop your people management skills and help your team grow. In this example, you should focus on driving the technical aspect of the product. I think that the biggest issue that you might have as a new EM is that you might want to fall back to your previous SWE role. You might miss coding and you might think that it'll be fun to write some code here and there. Please don't. As an EM your most important focus will not be to write code. And many EMs, who fight against this might have problems going forward. With the above, I don't want to mean that you should never ever write any code as an EM. If you want to do it, please feel free. However, remember that this is not why you're an EM now. There is no (almost) limit to the EM path. You can go: EM -> Director -> VP -> CTO/CIO.

Awesome This is helpful

Both roles require technical acumen. You should be able to participate in technical discussions with your developers and actively contribute to them. Your developers will only trust you, if you show that you can hold your ground in a technical discussion. Having said that above, neither a PM nor a TPM will need to code. In most (all?) cases they are not asked coding questions during the interviews and they don't code in their day-to-day tasks. A technical interview for a PM/TPM typically is about system design questions and technical understanding. For example, they can ask you to "explain the architecture of a product that you worked on" or "how Twitter works" or "what happens when you type www.google.com in your browser". One notable example is the Amazon Product Manager role, which does not even include a technical interview. Amazon has a separate role for technical PMs (called "Product Manager - Technical" aka "PM-T") vs non-technical PMs (called "Product Manager", aka "PM"). Microsoft also has the role of a Program Manager (which is a hybrid of a Product Manager and Technical Program Manager) and the role of a Business Program Manager (which is not technical). If you want more information, please take a look at : 1. TPM interview prep guide: https://engineerseekingfire.com/how-to-prepare-for-technical-program-manager-interviews/ 2. PM interview prep guide: https://engineerseekingfire.com/how-to-prepare-for-product-manager-interviews/

My TC is ~350k (currently fluctuating quite a bit due to the recent impact of covid in the stock market) and my net worth is around $2.5M (fluctuating as well).

What would you say is the best way to build technical acument? Do you think one should go through a bootcamp of some sort? or do you think there are specific resources or books one could read to gain that insight and knowledge? Thank you for doing this AMA by the way!