This past year has been a tough one for the tech industry at large. It’s just two weeks into 2024, and we are seeing more and more layoffs daily. Last week, we saw Twitch, Discord, Google and more have layoffs; it’s no wonder that thousands of Software Engineers say the job market is getting worse!
I want to talk about a different angle, one that isn’t as broadly covered in the mainstream media: how this impacts the Product and Program Management job functions.1 As there was another layoff last week that hit close to home: Instagram laid off all Technical Program Managers (TPM), consolidating them into the Product Management (PM) function.
If you’ve been reading with me for the past year, you’ll know that I am about to say something controversial: kudos on following my advice, Meta. While it should have been prevented in the first place, the longer you wait to fix these issues, the more painful it is. Before you come at me with pitchforks 🔱, allow me to explain myself!
If you’ve been reading…
…then my opinion should come as no surprise given I specifically advised for the consolidation of Program Management and Product Management last year. To quote myself (for the first time in any post 😅):
Product managers at software companies own technical products. How can you own a product you don’t understand? Conversely, technical program managers exist to meet the needs of the business. How can they prioritize their program if they don’t understand some amount of business value and strategy? Rather than trying to explain program vs project vs product and then the technical variants of the three, let me now say what I believe should exist and how they make sense together:
- Technical (Product | Program) Manager
- (If Needed) (Product | Program) Manager
If you’re not familiar with regex notation, (Product | Program) means pick one; however, don’t have both…I do not believe there is a difference in the roles.
Excerpt fromSo, What is a Technical Program Manager (TPM), Anyway? Part 2: The Four P’s
While I argue in my post that, etymologically speaking, “program” is the superior word to chose for alignment purposes, I am not going to let semantics get in the way of such alignment. “Product” is the hotter, sexier word right now, and “program” is so 
2000 and late ✋.
If you go back further and read part 1 of my series defining TPM, the TPM triangle is introduced to explain that a TPM must be capable across three dimensions:
- Product Management
- Project/Process Management
- Technical Depth
That’s right – to be a complete TPM, you have to be able to do Product Management!
OK, Straker – but my pitchfork is still out. This sums it up:
Let’s look at the industry…
2023 marked significant shifts for those in PM variant roles at tech companies. Most notably, Airbnb eliminated the Product Management function and folded it into product marketing management (PMM). They then kept the the Program Management function, which has more clear delineation with PMM. Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s CEO, dives deep on this change in this podcast that is well worth the listen.
Meta’s layoffs in the first half of 2023 also hit the TPM function hard, and a lot of my former coworkers and bosses were laid off.
But most telling of all was this Reddit post that blew up of a PM of 6 years that said “product management is a fake profession.” And now I have to quote myself for the second time ever, in the same post no less:
…exponential growth patterns of company size doesn’t come exclusively from engineers, but the rise in “engineering overhead” roles.
What are “engineering overhead” roles? Well, any role that isn’t a software engineer!
But wait – you’re a TPM, Straker. Are you calling yourself overhead? Yes; overhead doesn’t mean bad! In fact, some is very necessary; I am not calling these roles bullshit jobs (although this is a great read). But the keyword is some. Yet anecdotally, friends across companies, including multiple FAANG/MANGA companies, are all saying the same thing: companies have grown, but there are significantly more non-engineers in rooms now making decisions, which in turn slows things down.
Excerpt fromWant to Focus on Efficiency? Look at Your Organizational Structure
I will again advise you go read Vadim’s bullshit jobs article; it is an excellent writeup of this concept in the tech industry. Now that you’re back, what’s interesting is the 6 year PM of the Reddit post believes they have a bullshit job, and I am not surprised by this.
In my quote, I say “the keyword is some,” but the reality is there are often too many engineering overhead roles now, perhaps even within a single function such as TPM or PM. And when you look at it holistically across functions (that are often more similar than they are different)? The bloat is unfortunately all too common. Layoffs suck, but so does working in an overly bureaucratic environment that moves slow. And yes, bloat of engineering overhead roles results in such an environment!
We don’t know much about the Original Poster (OP) of the Reddit post. We don’t know if they are in such a bloated environment. All I am saying is it is a statistical probability that then explains the sentiment. I maintain my opinion that PM/TPM is not a bullshit job. Rather, an excess of them is a separate issue and should be treated as such. It seems like Airbnb and Meta both agree, as they have not eliminated the function entirely, but consolidated where appropriate.
Why is this happening?
Yes, long-term low interest rates are a major contributor to why this happened, but the bigger issue is our process. Much of our process was created during long-term low interest rates to serve the need to grow, but it’s time our process updated to the new macroeconomic environment.
Fundamentally, we have to stop rewarding increases to organizational scope. We do this in a myriad of ways, such as by conflating budgeting and planning that rewards functional teams with more overhead than integrated teams and encourages an output vs outcome mindset. I am not alone in saying this – read the ScarletInk’s How Companies Incentivize Layoffs or Peter Yang’s recent interview Why It’s Finally Time for the Individual Contributor PM to Shine if you don’t believe me!
So…what should we do?
“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.” We’ve seen two large companies impact the PM variant role – I do not recommend you wait for a third and act surprised when it happens. Instead, prepare for the likely industry-wide changes to PM variant roles that (re)consolidate the roles.
We have to flip the script to be outcome oriented, and our processes and behavior need to change to enable this. If your process is encouraging the behavior that leads to layoffs, such as by gamifying organizational growth, fight back against it. Highlight this discrepancy and influence your organization to evolve to meet the needs of the current environment.
At the same time, prepare for the change. We must be the interdisciplinary leaders that our jobs initially required. Instagram TPMs weren’t just laid off, but were able to transition to be PMs. Similarly, Airbnb PMs were able to transition to PMM. Be comfortable with such transition!
If you are a TPM and feel you need to improve in your strategic thinking, read Good Strategy/Bad Strategy.
If you are a Product Manager and need to improve in how you execute, start learning from your peers. This does not mean engaging in PM “performance theater” (as it is called in Peter Yao’s recent interview), where you learn a single framework and think it will work for every situation. Rather, build out your toolkit to include more than one tool.2
If you feel like you are lacking on the technical side, consider taking some courses and/or getting certified in technical areas within your domain. For example, Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure), and Google (GCP) all have certification programs.
If you are a manager in a functionally aligned organization (ie, PMs reporting to PMs, or TPMs reporting to TPMs), consider switching back to an Individual Contributor (IC) role. I am not saying all managers should switch back, but I have seen this successfully set the example that you do not need to transition to management for career growth reasons. The IC career path should be a long and fulfilling one that provides immense business value – help make this the case at your company!3
Lastly, we need to preach what we practice; we need to stop peddling the insanity of saying that we need a Product Manager, a Technical Product Manager, a Product Marketing Manager, a Product Owner, a Program Manager, a Technical Program Manager, and more as separate roles to be effective. Pawel Huryn, one of the top PM speakers on LinkedIn, has already started – will you?
Conclusion
During situations like this, I like to see opportunity rather than focus on the negative. We can do this! 💪
Yes, layoffs suck. Yes, I wish we avoided this situation as an industry in the first place. Yes, the people laid off are rarely the ones who made mistakes yet are the ones paying the price. Yes, we should all have empathy for those laid off and help folk as much as we can. Yes, it could be us next (and what goes around comes around). Despite all of this, we can help the industry move forward in this area and prevent this situation from happening again!
Footnotes
- I will generically refer to these roles as “PM variants.” ↩︎
- It has been on my todo list since starting this blog to dig into frameworks. If it would help you, please let me know to prioritize these posts! ↩︎
- You can consider this if you’re an engineering manager as well – charity.wtf has a great post about this here. ↩︎
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