Technical Program Manager

ROLE OF TPM

Let’s clarify some roles first.

Project Manager: They usually manage one project for a particular product. They are responsible for planning, organizing, and directing the completion of a specific project while ensuring the project is on time, on budget, and within scope.

Product Manager (PM): They usually manage a particular product or feature. They lead the vision and are in-charge of conducting consumer research and analyzing market fit for their product and/or its features.

Program Manager (PM/PgM): They usually manage a family of products. They focus on synergies among the products and the next thing that will have the biggest impact on their organization. These products may or may not be internal.  

Technical Program Manager (TPM): They focus on the work of program managers from a technical standpoint, often playing a more hands-on role than traditional Program Managers. They spend time analyzing the infrastructure of the organization and developing new technical products to meet user needs. 

These are very general descriptions - the actual role may differ depending on the organization. 

WHAT DOES A TPM DO?

It depends; the role and scope of a TPM are very dependent on the firm. In fact, even in the same firm, the role can vary significantly depending on the organization or team. 

TPM @ FB

Facebook is very data-driven. Collaboration among TPMs, product managers, engineering managers, user design engineers, etc. is heavily emphasized. TPMs spend a considerable amount of time cultivating relationships in their organization - they need to develop rapport to lead with influence, not authority. TPMs are often the people leading roadmap planning -- read: focus on execution -- and working closely with engineers to prioritize and flesh out feature requests -- read: cross-functional collaboration is key.

TPMs are evaluated on the following criteria. It is helpful to know this to properly understand what kind of work TPMs do.

• Technical: Focus on system design and infrastructure planning
• Management: Focus on stakeholder and product management + emphasis on execution
• Leadership: Focus on impact + drive cross-functional collaboration 

Facebook has various kinds of TPMs depending on the organization/team, each with a different focus. The majority of them are Infrastructure TPMs and the article is written with a focus on them. However, high-level insights are applicable to all TPMs.

• Infrastructure TPMs
• Product TPMs
• Fiber TPMs
• Data TPMs
• Likely some others

Career Trajectory

TPM@FB is a flexible role with a variety of opportunities for career progression. Within TPM, you can grow into a manager/director of TPMs or become a senior TPM individual contributor (IC). Senior TPM ICs manage programs of extraordinarily large scope, usually spanning multiple organizations, from conception to launch. Other TPMs may switch into adjacent roles to become engineering managers or product managers.

FACEBOOK TPM INTERVIEW PROCESS*

* As of December 2020

The TPM intern interview process consists of two 45 minute phone interviews, each consisting of behavioral and system design questions. Usually, there are no Leetcode style programming questions in the interviews (typically, FB TPMs don’t code, but most are pretty good at coding). 

The new grad full-time interview process does not exist. Yes, you read that right: only interns can become new grad TPMs at Facebook!

HOW TO PREPARE FOR A FACEBOOK TPM INTERVIEW?

Preparing for the TPM intern interview consists of preparing for three things:  

1. Behavioral questions
2. System design questions
3. Questions for the interviewers

For the behavioral questions, it may be helpful to search online for common behavioral questions and run through some of them by writing bullet points for ways you could answer the questions. When answering the questions, focus on using the STAR method.

Pro tip: Think about 3-4 examples of your work before the interview (mix of technical and leadership-focused). For each, think about:

• Technical difficulties (how did you deal with it, what did you learn)
• Team collaboration difficulties 
• Impact you had (there is a joke that if you are not using the word impact every 5 minutes during the interview, you are doing it wrong) 
• Leadership experience
• How did you execute (with focus project prioritization)?
• How was the user and data analytics at the center of decision making?
• Failures and learnings

For the system design questions, you want to focus on learning how to answer PM type interview questions and applying that knowledge to the questions you are asked in the interview. For infrastructure teams, the system design questions might concern infra topics like scaling a service or allocating resources for it. The interviewers are looking for structured thinking, creativity, and adaptability rather than a scripted response or one right answer. Although you typically won’t be expected to code in a TPM interview, your interviewers will be assessing your ability to communicate technical concepts, particularly with non-technical audiences.

For questions for the interviewers, you should refer to Facebook's financial reports. They usually highlight challenges ahead, and such questions are often a great way of showcasing your preparedness for the interview and interest in the firm. Try to connect this to your work and/or a team you are interested in. Asking questions for the sake of asking questions is a lost opportunity. Moreover, interviewers have a lot of experience and can provide valuable insights - feel free to ask them for advice as well.

CONNECT WITH US

If you are interested in learning more, have questions, or just want to chat, feel free to reach out to us. Email Vraj Shroff with any questions. 

Facebook 2020 TPM Intern Class

* 2019 Google TPM Interns

• Vraj Shroff *, University of Pennsylvania
• Alex Reyes, Penn State
• Vanessa Yan, Yale University 
• Ankur Jain *, University of California, Berkeley
• Sam Steinberg, Cornell University
• Amber Yang, Stanford University 
• Angelina Jin, University of Waterloo (Canada)
• Alicia Lee, Wellesley College
• Lindsey Ferretti, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Shikha Pandey, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• and others

This article has been written by previous Facebook and Google TPM interns and incoming new grad TPMs from the US. It is meant to be taken as a reflection, rather than strict guidelines. The goal of this article is to introduce the field of Technical Program Management to students. Note: We are not spokespeople or interviewers of Facebook. All opinions are personal and we regret any errors in the article.