What skillsets differentiate SDMs from TPMs and vice versa? I’m noticing that a lot of TPMs are acting SDMs and vice versa, so much so that they seem to be the same thing. If both get promoted they seem to go to Director of Engineering, so that’s obviously the same.
TPM is an individual contributor track mostly coming from Product Mgmt background. SDMs are supposed to be people mgrs usually super technical coming from traditional Software engineering path. https://medium.com/making-meetup/em-el-pm-venn-diagram-764e79b42baf @
Not true. majority of TPMs I know in amazon come from a tech background and/or were SDEs before they switched to TPM. At amazon the tech bar for SDM is the same as TPM. TPM = TECHNICAL Program Manager Emphasis on the technical. Maybe you’re confusing TPM with “Product manager - Tech”??
The person asking question is from Chewy hence TPM = Technical Product Mgr. They seem to have recently introduced TPM = Technical Project Manager at Chewy too I agree TPMs at Amazons are Technical Program Mgr and the bar to be technical for TPM is higher than industry average Program Managers who generally come from Project Mgmt roles. I disagree that tech bar at Amazon for TPMs & SDMs at same level (i.e. L5, L6 etc) are same.
The fundamentals difference is (and should be) in what they focus on. SDM focus on delivery ie. building the right solution that solves the problem. PMs (including TPMs) focus on discovery ie. what is the problem? As you go higher up, you are still focusing on the same thing, but with broader context.
Maybe I’m just dense, but I don’t see how this is functionally effective - unless it’s role is to render SDM a dead end job. The TPM is responsible for: * requirements * technical estimation * technical task breakdown * all cross-team communication * project delivery * who does what * system architecture * high level logical / data flow * system contract definition * roadmap SDM is responsible for: * promotions * on call rotations Staff/Principal engineer: * bringing technical debt items to TPM * presenting TPM design to architecture / design review * telling TPM what the company best practices are Note - I’m an SDM wondering wtf I do. Everywhere else I’ve worked we had *PRODUCT* managers but they didn’t know engineering or coding etc. TC: 380k
Sdm can be tpm.. other way around many not be true. Tpm could be subset of sdm
Just like SDMs are the worst coders on the team, TPMs are the worst SDMs in the Org. You will mostly find TPMs acting as SDMs in Orgs that are unable to attract the right talent.
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Assuming TPMs are technically savvy enough they should be able to function as sdms. Sometimes it's just a choice between being a people manager/ individual contributor, and either looking inwards or outwards.