TPM vs Eng Mangement
I am an IC engineer at Facebook and have started having discussions with my superiors on what my longer term goals are and I have been told on number occasions that I have good natural instinct for resolving ambiguity and translating tech language to a non technical audience and that I have good communication skills. I don't love coding but I don't hate it. I do know that I want to shift to something else some time in the future. The question is what are the pros and cons of staying in engineering versus transitioning to a more product oriented role such as TPM? The things that are most important to me (in order) are: 1) Upwards mobility 2) TC 3) Enjoying my work 4) WLB
They may be trying to politely tell you that you suck at engineering (which pays better than that soft skills TPM)
This advice is coming exclusively from cross functional colleagues that work in product and comms/legal. I get high ratings and reviews on my eng team
TPM is technical program manager (not product). Product manager is completely different from TPM and Program Manager.
Dude, if you’re doing pretty well as an engineer at FB, you’d be an idiot to move to TPM. They make so much less, it’s unreal. Even PM makes less than Eng, but it’s close enough. But TPM makes nowhere near Eng, and generally doesn’t have as important of a role.
This. Go the EM route if you don't want to do the IC route.
At junior levels, yes. At L7 plus, the comp is absolutely there.
Disagree on comp when you say so much less.. diff is 10 to 20 % for experienced TPMs
You have to compare same exp level. 10yoe TPM is like 5YOE Eng
If you want a product role move over to product manager. TPM is just a coordinator role
Tpm is no more product oriented than em. EM is orders of magnitude more comp
The comp is similar at higher level