What’s your take on TPM roles?

New
MKkb52

New

MKkb52
Dec 8, 2021 10 Comments

The title says it all.

I’ve been a senior level TPM at a few different places and while the things differ slightly, the role always seems to revolve around being a glorified admin, a pseudo scrum master, and some sort of a (weak) project manager.

I’m wondering how engineers view the TPM role, and if my experience is typical or outside of the norm.

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  • Personally I think TPM roles are overvalued, and think it hits a lot of the points you mention. Unless the TPM was previously a SWE (or DS if its a DS TPM), or has technical domain knowledge, i dont see how they are doing anything more than glorified admin work like taking notes, scheduling meetings, and checking on stauses of tasks.
    Dec 8, 2021 1
  • Conga / Other
    noname127

    Go to company page Conga Other

     noname127
    I guess it depends on the company. In my company it used to be like what you said but with new management , the engineering managers and scrum team took over many of those responsibilities and TPM had bigger scope.
    Dec 8, 2021 1
    • New
      MKkb52

      New

      MKkb52
      OP
      Yeah, I largely think it depends on management and org structure. Where I’m at now, TPMs have a pretty broad scope but, there’s so much opportunity to do more from what I’ve seen.
      Dec 8, 2021
  • TPM is good role, nice pay, good respected role
    Dec 8, 2021 0
  • Amazon
    amzblah

    Go to company page Amazon

    amzblah
    I would have no interest in the tasks you are describing. Thats why we have SDMs. Sounds like you are the SDM's EA and I would say that f* that shit, this ain't worth my time.

    Ownership really varies with teams and companies. Generally engineers think we are moderately worthless because of feedback like yours.
    Where I am at Amazon, nothing large and complex will ship without a TPM because engineers and managers generally don't have the skills or will to manage large engineering programs spanning different teams and orgs. That comes with huge stress, huge visibility but also huge impact and recognition. Unfortunately not a huge TC.

    So I personnaly do not care about the opinion of SDE2s because they clearly have very little visibility and understanding about how the whole sausage is made.
    Dec 8, 2021 2
  • Workday
    jjjiiiih

    Go to company page Workday

    jjjiiiih
    It’s a glorified executive assistant.
    Dec 8, 2021 0