Hey everyone, I'm curious if someone can shed some light for me on Program Management at Microsoft. I'm thinking about changing workplaces and really am curious about working for Microsoft but I'm getting confused the more I look at the roles at Microsoft. Some Program Manager roles I see posted remind me more of Product Managers, others seem like typical TPM roles, others again remind me very much of a Scrum Alliance definition of a Product Owner (Think mix of Product, Program, and Project). So what is the actual role of Program Managers at Microsoft? What is their responsibility? What's WLB like for them? General a good role to go into at MSFT? Or still better to go into Product Management if one wants to go for career advancement at MSFT these days? Glad for any insight. 10+ YOE/ TC ~$120k Currently Senior Product Owner (think 30% PM, 50% PgM, 10% Project, 10% Portfolio) #pm #product #productmanager #programmanager #program #tpm #microsoft
Historical Microsoft PM was program manager, and product manager was marketing. The definitions for these roles all changed in the industry, particularly with the Google Product Manager role. Now Microsoft has started to adjust, but it's pretty variable, talk to the hiring manager about the day to day.
Could you give me some context where the Google Product Manager role differs significantly? Is it what we just think of generally as Product Manager these days?
I've never worked at Google, so probably someone else is better to describe, but I think it's generally what people think of as product manager these days. The classic microsoft PM was a hybrid role with about half your time spent in the google product manager style, and half your time in the TPM space. You might write a product manager-ish document, but then you would work hand in hand with the engineering manager to execute rather than hand off.