Is Technical Program Manager (TPM) a dying role?
Title YOE 8 TC 400k #google #amazon #meta #apple #microsoft #nvidia #bytedance #tesla #waymo #airbnb #openai #slack #salesforce #intel #zoox #netflix #tech #startup
It is.
They are middle men holding information and causing unnecessary friction
In my experience they are either awesome coordinators/stores of knowledge or dead weight that blames the people doing the actual work. A PM of either kind is either a big value add or the opposite. Rarely middle ground.
Instagram got rid of all TPMs. That tells something.
sigh. that doesn't make the tpm work go away, they're now making the PMs (and maybe eng) do the tpm work. Honestly, I do think PM / TPM should be merged into a 'technical product manager' type position since there is so much overlap in terms of skillsets and responsibilities (stakeholder management, communication, alignment, driving consensus, etc.).
Instagram is a matured product
Who is driving the implementation and launch of a new feature or product across 50 cross functional teams? If it's not a TPM, is the expectation that this is now owned by a SDM or SDE? Maybe, I see this as an exception and Im not worried about my job going away. As for the TPMs who are basically acting as EAs to lazy SDMs , yeah that category of TPM should have never existed and needs to die.
TPM here. I would say the pool is diluted, and so much of that excess fat needs to be trimmed off. There are TPMs that don't do TPM work. 99% of the time, they're tasked with repetitive leg work of a business analyst. A proper TPM should be able to understand ALL code reviews and make technical decisions at their respective level.
wtf. no. that's a TL role. TPM owns defining the major workstreams / milestones for a big project, setting up the right processes to track and manage work, and communicating status to relevant parties. If the TPM is empowered to lead / drive such initiatives, it's very impactful. If the organization is set up where TPMs are just glorified secretaries or status updaters, then the company is not using TPMs correctly.
a TPM should understand ALL cod reviews? What crack pipe are you smoking. Which tpm has the time to be deeply understand the code and do program management responsibilities. I worked with a TPM that was “technical” but terrible at program management. They took so much pride in being technical but couldnt create a project plan or hold a meeting for shit. The primary qualities a TPM should have is great program management and leadership skills. Tech skills are also needed but no TPM is approving pull requests. That’s nuts
All roles in tech except for highly skilled engineer are dying roles. TPM and PM will be first to get cut. Then mediocre devs and eventually only good devs will have jobs in the US. Mediocre dev jobs will move to India.
The good ones add value, bad ones don’t, not wvery program needs a TPM, not everything you think is a program is a program
TPM are useless, they don’t know anything except pinging people !! Dump people .
If TPMs aren’t there then EMs will ping people. Eventually you will get pinged about the status by someone.
ot2r is spot on. Somebody needs to the pinging. However, the status updates need to be read by someone for them to be worth pinging about. If nobody reading the update, TPM should either find a way to make sure it gets read or stop pinging.
I see this shit post about TPMs every second day from this guy on blind. Get a life. Looks like some TPM made you accountable for your deliverable. No, every major projects have project managers. It’s not just tech. It’s not a dying role.
I’m a TPM who works his ass off. However perception is important. We’d be a fool to not pivot before it’s too late
Instagram laid off all their TPMs. That says something about the value TPMs bring to a company.