The subject sentiment has been around for a long time. But it’s even more noticeable nowadays as more tech layoffs are concentrating on TPM roles. Here are a few common complaints I observed: 1. Only after dates. Not adding value to the team. 2. Not technical. Can’t communicate with the devs. 3. Overly paid. Just glorified secretary but getting paid close to a dev (maybe 85% comparatively?) should be the first to go during layoffs. Since this community is engineer heavy, especially junior engineer heavy, I’d say your experience is real and valid, but that’s not the whole picture. TPM is not a well defined role across the tech industry let alone the whole business world. But having been surrounded by good and bad TPMs I do think I can say one or two things about this role:) 1. Good TPMs don’t have to code or be equipped with extensive domain knowledge. But they do have strong interest in your technical issues so will dive deep with the engineering team quite often. At the same time, they will a lot times have a more clear system understanding than some junior engineers, since they will be exposed to a higher level work environment. That’s the value of the “T”. I’ve had a very successful TPM with a political science degree and a very lost TPM with BS and MS in CS… 2. Good TPMs are motivated and are proactive. They will identify team gaps early and roll up their sleeves to cover, since they know their success is tied on the program delivery. The gaps here can be cross functional interdependencies, resource management, priorities, risks, etc. These values should be very noticeable since engineers benefit from them directly and once an engineer has experienced such, they will always look for these things from TPMs. 3. Good TPMs know how to push back to cover the team. There are times that TPMs need to fight for the team against other stakeholders so that the team won’t be signed up for some ridiculous programs or delivery dates. And sometimes articulate well about why something got delayed. 4. Good TPMs accommodate teams’ needs but more importantly can navigate the team to success. They are not just fed by the dates. They start by delivering clarity to the team from the ambiguity most of the early programs have. Then they execute by aligning different stakeholders and keep the ball rolling. They can also provide advice to optimize work streams as well as resources. Too bad that this isn’t always the case for the TPM you interact with. I agree with folks that some bad TPMs don’t really have any idea about how useless, or even harmful their existence is to the team… Side note: having been in a few big tech firms, I noticed the company culture can also affect the TPM role importance. I personally think TPMs don’t fit into any bottom-up culture (e.g. Meta) or so called engineer driven companies (e.g. Google). TPMs thrive in business driven environment (e.g. Amazon). Blind Tax: 450k #TPM #tech #layoffs
TPM has it rough in this market for sure. 0 PM openings and 100s of PM got laid off. Imo, people should not hate on TPM. Different positions have different responsibility. Not everyone that adds value need to code. Source: I'm an engineer
ok secretary
Oh yea, the mythical ‘good’ TPM who’s all that. They are pretty much a unicorn. The rest of them, the 99% are donkeys. Which is why it’s better to just start with someone who’s already a good dev and assess for people and leadership skills.
My hunch on that is a dev that is technically sound and also people oriented will most likely go to the EM path instead… TPM roles still need to be filled… plus, TPMs naturally should have a wider but maybe shallower domain coverage compared to the EMs. So the need of a good dev as a background criteria will make it not practical to have enough TPMs.
TPMs at Amazon are project managers. As with any complex initiative, someone needs to coorndinate activities across teams. SDM is for one team....who then will follow up on activities across teams for one complex initiative. Sr. SDM? Can do...but I don't think they want to... Maybe PM-Ts but then, PM-Ts would hate that since project management is a major time suck. So...really the TPM role is a project management role. Maybe SDE3s or SDE2s who wish to become SDMs can be deputed to fill in the TPM role. But, I agree TPMs are not adding the same value as SDEs or PM-Ts
In my experience Amazon has the worst TPMs. In my previous company TPMs had more responsibilities. In Amazon all they do is compile an email. Schedule meetings.
No accountability for TPMs if something goes wrong in production . They will never be the end person to blame . EM is more stressful than TPM
That’s not true. If the program isn’t progressing smoothly, the first person to be checked is the TPM. But EM has way more burden on caring for individual engineers. So both are stressful in different ways.
If the clouded vaped brain for a young punk thinks - let them think. They also think 💭- oh Im just kidding. World doesn’t care
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It should be more to the TPMs coming from a strong technical background. The people management expectation for a TPM is also different from a SDM. So I’d say this conversion should be a narrow path only to a very limited number of TPMs. Amazon definitely opens my eyes about how an executive assistant could climb the ladder to become an engineering director…
Engineers always consider other roles as pen-pushers and paper-shufflers. However, business find it impossible to deal with most engineers directly for business value discussions on scope, project estimates, completion dates and risk analysis or options. Conversely the engineers hate attending all the business meetings and being hassled for business facing documentation that all pulls away their time from ‘real work’ that they want to focus upon. If only there was some other job role for someone who could bridge that gap and could appreciate the Technical elements and also the Project elements and Manage them for all parties…….