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👨‍🏫 The TPM role in an economic downturn

Let’s have an honest discussion about the TPM role.

Most recently, we saw Instagram (ahem, Meta) eliminate 60 Technical Program Manager roles from the company, inviting them to reapply to Program Manager roles.

With economic pressure on every tech company to be more lean, will the Technical Program Manager role be consolidated into Product and/or Engineering roles?

Here’s what I wish I could say to give you peace of mind:

NO. TPM’s are special and our roles are 100% resilient to economic downturns. Nobody else can do our job as good as us! (that last part should be true 😅 )

But...that's not reality. And unfortunately we all must deal with reality at least once a day.

What’s the outlook of TPM roles?

(Let me preface with this with something sorta important: these are just my opinions. There is always a margin for error with anyone’s opinions. Writing publicly online like this just exposes my opinions!)

Get ready for some dense text. I didn’t have as much time this week to beautifully format the newsletter.

Here’s what I’m seeing in the tech industry as it relates to the TPM role:

• Large companies are seeing consolidation of many roles, not just TPM. Let’s face it, ~2010-2020 was a glorious growth period of companies. Now many companies are being forced into organizational efficiency (ex: Meta Year of Efficiency). So it’s not just TPM’s feeling the pressure. Many Engineer middle-management layers are being consolidated. Product orgs are being squeezed to take on broader ownership with less headcount.

• Junior TPM roles are and will be harder to find. This isn't fun to say out loud. I have personally connected with young career professionals who want to be TPM’s, but haven’t quite graduated or just recently graduated. The near-term prospects aren’t promising. It can be risky to put a new grad up to the task of TPM: the level of engineering breadth is vast, product process and strategy awareness is key, and leadership exposure is constant. For any new grad reading, I’m 100% open to being proven wrong here. This isn't to say Junior TPM roles don't and won't exist. Its just an uphill battle where he hiring funnel of the TPM role won't default-start with new grads.

• Project Manager roles will remain extinct from tech companies. This is an example of how most of the tech industry has already, permanently consolidated some coordination functions. If you’re not aware: Tech companies don't and won’t have dedicated project managers. This responsibility falls on a tech lead or engineering manager (ie domain experts). This will continue to be the case, which I believe is the right move.

• TPM roles will continue to be high-value in scaled, strategic execution situations. A TPM working directly with 1 - 3 engineering teams may see a consolidation of their role into engineering or product. Your unique value-add isn’t very…unique. What does it mean have “scaled execution”? The ratio of TPM-to-Engineering varies, but its typically a massive difference. 1:50 or even 1:100. This typically means they cross many organizations, which is a unique value-add across 10’s of teams.

• TPM Roles will continue to be highly competitive in the near-future. I don’t see the pressure easing up this year. With interest rates staying higher than expected, it means tech companies (especially start-ups) will be less likely to borrow money to grow. I don’t think layoffs will be as drastic as we’ve seen in the past 2 years, but the days of high-growth and “free money” are over for a while. Every tech company will move forward with over-hiring paranoia, pulling them to be more conservative in hiring.

• The biggest overlap is with Product Management, not Engineering Management. If anything, engineering and TPM are less likely to step on each others toes. Product and Program though, that’s a different story. If we take a step back from the terminology, we essentially need someone who can (1) identify market opportunities and (2) drive all cross-functional contributors to deliver on it. Product Management should lean heavy on #1. Program Management should lean heavy on #2. But if you have someone that can do both? Well, that’s what we call a high impact player. And this isn’t unheard of either. It’s not a unicorn. It’s just someone who has spent years honing their craft of delivering business value, regardless of title.

So what should you do?

Unfortunately, I don’t have a magic 8-ball to tell you what to do.

The path forward isn’t easy. The job market volatility can be scary.

But, if you focus on what is in your control then you’ll be surprised at the impact you can have.

Consider the following “in your control” activities:

• Focus on building skills rather than passion. Be so good they cannot ignore you.

• Understand that what you’re facing can be seen as an opportunity. The obstacle is the way. When I was laid off from Twitter, the obstacle of not have a job became the opportunity to spend time creating the course Technical Program Management: A Practitioner’s Guide.

• Feel free to “borrow” some books from my TPM Library.

• Lean into the TPM community. Meet new people and get outside your own thinking.

• And to wrap up, consider this advice for TPM’s from Straker Carryer on how to move forward in the current TPM job market.

Best of luck. I hope this newsletter is helping you navigate the TPM realm.

People

🤝 Meet Straker Carryer: Senior Principal TPM at Zillow.

I’ll be honest, Straker has been in the TPM game longer than me, and with that comes a wealth of wisdom. He’s a TPM the generates some high quality content on his own TPM blog.

In preparation for this post, I did some research and naturally found myself reading his commentary on the consolidation of the TPM role.

Check out the full post:

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