I keep hearing from FB employees that TPMs are not first class citizens. Is it really true in most cases across your FB orgs? TPM roles have been synergized and very much a critical role to run programs these days. Moreover you hire TPMs after rigorous interview process which means you have best of best TPMs. Is it a envious statement or is it true in all FAANG or just FB? It will help us join FB as none wants to join a company knowing it. #please be specific, constructive and tell what exactly is failing and where/how so that your fellow TPM colleagues can improve or if they are doing great job, please do show your appreciation.
All TPMs I worked with were useless.
Interesting! What is your role, yoe? Why would you say everyone is useless? Does your management know this? Just asking to see if FB has bad interview process to let just those who speak nicely?
SWE, 10+ yoe. I’m not saying that all TPMs are useless, only those that I worked with (which is still not a small sample). Also when I say useless, I mostly mean their impact on the projects they work on. Some managers/directors really like them because they can offload some post writing and note taking to them, which mostly helps build the external perception of an org being more organized. I’ve also talked to some TPMs who were pretty frustrated because it was not even clear what exactly was expected from them in the role.
Seeing the discussion here specially in FANG how does the roles and responsibility differ for a product manager , TPM and a engineering manager ( smaller companies or non fang may have engineering manager put on other hats to make sure project runs successfully , and also look and discuss product direction and roadmap with the product teams , but mainly focus on engineering team challenges , framework and pipeline building and working with other teams to get the product evaluated - if makin a difference post launch )
Read https://engineerseekingfire.com/differences-between-product-program-engineering-marketing-managers/ regarding the differences between a Product Manager, a Technical Program Manager and an Engjneering Manager
A good TPM is better than PM and becomes really critical . Any bad type of PM will create distractions for eng
TPMs are the captains of FAT programs. Their job is often misunderstood. Anything large complex and ambiguous cannot ship, and cannot ship on time without a TPM. If you have never worked with a good TPM, you also probably have never launched anything really big. That being said, some suck and should be not TPMs. Finally a lot of TPMs are poorly hired, poorly managed, and poorly utilized.
So there is clearly fault in your hiring process where I see less experienced ppl who prep well and talk well get the jobs but not based on potential or interest or execution ability. If you have hired bad TPMs that doesn't stop there and you would have hired bad devs, bad EMs, bad directors, VPs too. So better voice out on interview systems and how to streamline it
I love my TPM and he's super important and nice. I think FB is a great place to be a TPM, at least my team
Which team? What do they do that makes them so great?
Privacy review, team updates, cross team communication, roadmapping, chat with leadership, and he's a great career mentor too, I ask him for random advice all the time. My TPM is super senior and experienced and knows how to navigate politics.