What’s the better position: Product Manager or Technical Product Manager? Better as a whole in terms of prestige, career oportunities, TC, etc. (The ‘P’ standing for Product in both cases.)
What's the difference?
Also, what’s it like switching between the two? Is it a pretty fluid transition? Is one direction easier than the other?
Re: FB—There are many posts in blind that answer your exact question. But the short answer is no. It is incredibly hard to move from a TPM role to a PM role. Both have completely different org structures, compensation package, growth opportunities and interview process. PM pays much better and has a greater career progression than TPM, but then it depends on your professional aspirations and interests.
@Abdbdn, Just to point out, OP is referring to TPM as a Technical Product Manager and NOT as a Technical Project Manager so I would think it’s quite easy to transition....Unless OP meant to say “Technical Project Manager”.
Depends, some companies are more project development focused (i.e. construction) others are more product/marketing focused (consumer staples) , others a engineering focused (semiconductor/sw). In the technology sector it varies. Do some research at the companies you want to work for. I think silicon valley is still engineering/development focused for TPM is in more demand. But as technology matures, PM will be more important.
No confusion at Microsoft. They combined both roles into one role called TPM. TC is same as SWE
TPM should be able to transition to PM easily. As a PM with limited technical background, you have less career longevity because tech changes rapidly. The problems customers have today will be vastly different than that of customers 10 years from now.
It depends what you want. PMs are better compensated and their work is more interesting but its a far more stressful job and the WLB is awful. TPMs are compensated well, but the work can be incredibly tedious. They run XFN processes and meetings. But, its less stressful and occasionally can work on interesting things.
Thanks for the comment. Looks like I want to go the PM route.
Depends a lot on the company
That makes sense. Do you know of any companies where one is clearly better than the other?
At Amazon, TPMs make about 15% more than PMs and are clearly regarded more highly. At Stripe, I believe the inverse is true.