Become PM or TPM at Amazon?
SDE 2 at Amazon. 9 YOE. 1st year TC including rsu $60k in India. I am planning to move on from hard core technical track and become a PM (product manager) or TPM (technical program manager). I don't understand the difference between PM and TPM at Amazon. What's the difference at other companies? I will still be at level 5 it is just a track change not a promotion. My goals (in order of priority) 1. Get into a role that can help me in my entrepreneurial journey, I intend to launch MVP(minimum viable product) of my startup later this year. 2. Learn as much as possible about sales, marketing, management, finance. 3. Stay relevant and employable in the long run, that's my backup plan. I don't care much about gaining or losing technical skills. Update: As pointed out by many members here, TPMs are considered third class citizens. But my tpm doesn't admit it. May be she is not being "vocally self critical"? Thank you in advance, cheers 🙂 #productmanager #technicalprogrammanager #pm #tpm
program management at microsoft scuks big time...
Go for PM. TPM in Amazon is mere waste.
More tpm jobs in the market. Much less product manager jobs out there. Telling this by experience
I’m a Product Manager. All the tpms, delivery managers, project managers, etc. want to be me. They’re so jealous. Except for the engineers. They’re laughing all the way to the bank with their salaries.
@American Express: did you start out as a PM or switched from eng to PM?
You'd have to ask the company as everyone's definition varies. Often TPMs do engineering lead / system engineering + project management. Making technical contributions makes you more valuable and if the company has to choose who to axe, they'll keep a TPM over a schedule monkey.
I am a TPM. I used to be a PM. Got on the wrong track because of this agile crap. Started as a BA and advanced quickly to project manager due to waterfall style of management. Then agile came around and those of us who used to define things got switch over to TPM instead of PM. Bs
I don't understand if TPMs are glorified assistants then why they usually require more experience and I have never seen a TPM role open for fresh grad. But there are several entry level Product Manager roles open for fresh grad with 0 experience. Which role helps better to fast track career for an executive role if going up the ladder faster is the main goal?
PMs: first class citizens in most of the tech companies TPMs: third class citizens in most of the tech companies except Microsoft and probably amazon. Mostly umemployable outside big companies
Thanks for your answer, can you please tell what exactly does a tpm do?
Process, scrum and documents..helps multiple teams to colloborate better...must have good communication skills both in writing and verbal