What does Tech Lead Manager mean in Google?
Is this real title? Same as in management track?
So a TLM has direct report, but may not be on a management track? This is a bit odd. Google specific? In Apple only managers have direct reports
Lots of non managers at Google have direct reports
Uber has TLMs too. TLMs have a fewer reports than managers at the same level. TLMs can get promoted without growing their teams or managing managers. So if (1) you’re technically strong, (2) interested in management, (3) but you don’t see your team growing fast in the near future, then a TLM can be a good option.
It’s a role more than a title. Tech Lead + managing reports. During performance review you are held to expectations on both personal productivity and how good of a manager you are. It’s not an unusual step in transition from IC to full manager, and gives engineers time to grow into it. It can be a challenging position since the two activities have very different requirements.
TLM is a real but informal title. All TLMs are either on officially on the SWE track or the EM track so their on-paper titles may differ. There are pure managers who do not lead projects directly and there are pure tech leads who do not manage reports. A TLM does both.
So they stay TLM or eventually promote to EM?
Both tracks are viable and depends on what you want to do. If you want to be a pure manager you should switch to being a EM - the SWE track has performance expectations that are hard to hit without leading projects. If you want to be a more project-focused manager you would want to stay on the SWE track most likely so that you can get proper credit for the TLing part of your job.