Title says it all. Can't see any meaningful contribution from the ones I have interacted with. More like creating unnecessary meetings and sync loops to justify their existence. Is that a one of a kind experience or the general sentiment?
All NOs are votes from Program Managers!!
blind_post_about_pm_pgm_utility++;
Will do one about burnout and prestige to be more original
So, one more blind_post_about_pm_pgm_utility++;
Program managers don’t provide value to SDE’s, if that is what you are asking. Program managers are critical for herding cats and organizing teams to accomplish business goals.
Not an SDE. Can't see the latter basically
EXecutive Admins provide more value to Amazon than PMs
I voted NO and I am not a program manager. My life would be miserable if I didn’t partner with them. You probably just work with intellectually limited folks or your company don’t know how to leverage them well.
Could you please expand more on how your life would be miserable without them? In what way do they help you? Genuinely curious
how do you drive adoption on proposal changes? how do you build alignment cross teams? how do you coordinate a cross team effort involving dozen of different leaders? this is the problem they solve for me and I definitely can’t live without one.
Depends company to company. People who just talk and don't do hands on work, no matter what title are useless anyway.
Without PMs and other product focused leadership, many SWEs would be running around like headless chickens writing features that provide "value" when they have never talked to an actual customer. Also just like there are SWEs that output more than others, there are PMs that do more.
A good pgm is like gold. Keeps a team on track and handles logistics so team members can stay focused on the task at hand.
I have worked as a Program Manager in the past and I can tell you that there were times that I observed myself or a peer Program Manager providing zero business value because we were stuck in the monotony of project management type tasks and executive report-outs. There are also times when I've seen a Program Manager come in and define a strategy, create strategic alignment across disparate teams, and drive a cross-functional stakeholder group to a shared vision to execute an objective with tremendous business impact. As with everything, it really just depends.
Yeah, I probably have abounded the bad apples, that's all
I’m not a program manager, but they are important from a mgmt and compliance perspective.
Depends, YMMV company to company; a lot of what PMs do isn't readily apparent to ICs so it might seem like they're doing nothing, while instead they're doing behind the scenes work. But I do agree a lot of it seems like busy work.
Shouldn't I feel like they are helping in some organizational work and cross-team communication? Feels really like busy work they are not evening listening to