TPM (Technical Program Manager)

What does a TPM do?

Responsibilities

On a High Level:

• Lead complex, multi-disciplinary engineering projects.
• Coordinate projects across many functional areas in order to deliver features and releases.
• Translate high-level, ambiguous business goals into working software solutions.
• Drive effective teamwork, communication, collaboration and commitment across multiple disparate groups with competing priorities.
• Lead delivery of the large, complex projects by anticipating bottlenecks, providing escalation management, making tradeoffs, and balancing the business needs versus technical constraints.

In More Detail:

Vision and Strategy

• Help set and drive objectives across various teams.
• Define roadmap and engineering execution to enable customer success.
• Leverage data about how customers are using the product to influence design and direction of the product.
• Define new user experiences and drive innovation with the latest technologies. Build platforms and influence other groups as you define new customer experiences.
• Work closely with customers to understand their goals, needs, and requirements.
• Proactively identify and address actionable customer feedback.
• Enable your teams to provide successful and pertinent solutions to ensure customer success.
• Host reviews with senior leads to plan and communicate strategy.
• Ensure the big picture stays in focus while delving into the details on specific issues.

Collaboration

• Work closely with product managers and UX designers to identify and solve real-world customer problems and business opportunities.
• Interact with product managers, customer experience teams, other technical program managers and multiple development teams to define and deliver complex features.
• Enable cross group collaboration.
• Eliminate barriers to your teams’ success.

Communication

• Clearly communicate your teams’ work to all stakeholders.
• Act as point person to coordinate complex matrix of releases.
• Discuss the technical trade-offs in product development with engineers.
• Explain your team’s analyses and recommendations to executives.
• Provide regular status updates to stakeholders, product leadership, and engineering teams.
• Use both formal and informal influencing skills across cross-matrix organization.
• Drive for results through influence and relationship building.

Project Management

• Work with teams to identify scope, constraints, dependencies, and risks.
• Identify risks and clearly communicate them to project stakeholders.
• Define requirements and deliverables.
• Usher projects through the entire project lifecycle. Schedule and track project progress, with well-defined milestones.
• Assess the quality of releases through monitoring of incoming bugs and code changes to identify quality issues and trends.

Productivity

• Develop tools, documentation and processes to improve software engineering productivity.
• Interact with senior engineers throughout the company to determine the best practices for architecting, building, testing, and deploying software solutions/components.
• Be able to use a light touch to find ways to help the team be more efficient.

Qualifications

Engineering Expertise

• Thorough understanding of software development lifecycle from conception to delivery.
• Engineering expertise in your product area: cloud services, machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc.
• Previous work experience as a software developer.
• Background in computer science, engineering, related fields, or relevant practical experience.

Communication and Leadership

• Ability to understand and communicate complex technical concepts to a variety of audiences easily.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to use both formal and informal influencing skills across cross-matrix organization.
• Ability to drive for results through influence and relationship building.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with a range of stakeholders, and to lead global programs with the goal of customer-facing releases.

Strategy

• Proven experience working with senior leadership and experience defining and delivering on a product roadmap.
• Track record of transitioning immature or emerging technologies into consumer products.

Project management

• Experience leading projects to implementation.
• Experience managing complex technology projects.
• Experience managing projects involving multiple teams/stakeholders, resource planning and budgeting/forecasting.

Other Qualifications — may differ depending on the product/company/etc. Here are a few examples:

• Experience in one or more of the following: Python, Java, C, C++.
• Experience with current web technologies (Java, JavaScript, AngularJS, Ruby on Rails, Python or Perl).
• Experience managing hardware or rapid prototyping projects.

Who would be a good fit for a TPM role?

To be successful, you will be eliminating barriers to your teams success, clearly communicating their work to all stakeholders and ensuring the big picture stays in focus while delving into the details on specific issues. Ideal team members are adaptable and resilient, eager to attack unfamiliar problems with curiosity and tenacity, and able to use a light touch to find ways to help the team be more efficient.

I think the most challenging part of the TPM’s work is managing multiple projects with competing priorities simultaneously.

You would be a good fit for a TPM role if you are:

• Creative, innovative, and take great pride in delivering results and the positive business results of their work.
• Detail-oriented with a demonstrated ability to self-motivate and follow-through on projects.

and you have:

• Thorough understanding of software development lifecycle from conception to delivery.
• Data analysis, problem solving and project management skills.
• Previous work experience as a software developer.
• Ability to use both formal and informal influencing skills across cross-matrix organization.
• Excellent business judgment, strong written and oral communication skills, and a practical, common sense approach to getting things done.
• Ability to drive for results through influence and relationship building.
• Self-motivation, resourcefulness and independent action.
• Drive for experimentation and pushing innovative technology solutions.

What I like about TPM’s work

• Working closely with product managers and UX designers to identify and solve real-world customer problems and business opportunities.
• Leveraging data about how customers are using the product to influence design and direction of the product.
• Working closely with customers to understand their goals, needs, and requirements. Identifying the keys to customers success and enabling teams to provide efficient and pertinent solutions.
• Proactively identifying and addressing actionable customer feedback.
• Having ownership to define new user experiences and drive innovation with the latest technologies.
• Opportunities to build platforms and influence other groups as we define new customer experiences.
• Driving effective teamwork, communication, collaboration and commitment across multiple disparate groups with competing priorities.
• Driving for results through influence and relationship building, using both formal and informal influencing skills across cross-matrix organization.