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Vasanth Arunachalam

AMA: Meta (Facebook) Head of Technical Program Management, Vasanth Arunachalam on Technical Product Management

February 3 @ 9:00AM PST
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Meta (Facebook) Head of Technical Program Management, Vasanth Arunachalam on Technical Product Management
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Vasanth Arunachalam
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program ManagementFebruary 3
I'll answer this question in combination with "How is the role of technical product manager different than other product managers?" There is likely no formal definition of ‘technical product/program management’. Like I mentioned earlier, it is this fungibility aspect that makes this role a much ......Read More
2206 Views
6 requests
Vasanth Arunachalam
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program ManagementFebruary 3
This response also applies to one of the other questions asked here - "What qualities stand out in some of the best TPMs you know?" I strongly believe that you can be a successful technical product manager regardless of your background, as long as you have the passion and growth mindset. It is n......Read More
2739 Views
5 requests
Vasanth Arunachalam
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program ManagementFebruary 3
I’ll try to answer this first question along with the question of - “What metrics do technical product teams look at to define success, what do you find to be the most important?“ because they are similar. KPIs or Metrics are essentially a way to measure how successful your program or product is......Read More
3091 Views
17 requests
Vasanth Arunachalam
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program ManagementFebruary 3
Great to hear that more and more SWEs/SREs are considering transitioning into this career. I was a SWE myself before I transitioned to this role. Technical Product/Program Management (TPM) is a well established industry standard role now. I see more start ups hiring their first TPM even before t......Read More
1649 Views
13 requests
Vasanth Arunachalam
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program ManagementFebruary 3
I love this question because it flips one of the previous questions to focus more on the individual. IMO the success of a Technical Product/Program Manager largely lies in the ‘What’ and the ‘How’. What impact did they have? This individual measure of success should be tied to the business (pro......Read More
2536 Views
11 requests
Vasanth Arunachalam
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program ManagementFebruary 3
I personally enjoy my role. I think no challenge is insurmountable. If I were to think hard, especially at Meta, the pace at which technology advances is simply astounding. Especially in Integrity (a.k.a Trust & Safety) domain that I lead, the complexity of adversarial problems and the AI/ML inve......Read More
1340 Views
4 requests
Vasanth Arunachalam
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program ManagementFebruary 3
I talked about my take on desirable qualities in one of my previous responses, so I’ll focus on the common mistakes I’ve personally made in my career in the past, that hopefully will help others avoid those pitfalls. * Mistaking motion/effort for progress (This is also one of Meta’s posters on ......Read More
2076 Views
3 requests
Vasanth Arunachalam
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program ManagementFebruary 3
It could be a combination of any of these things - * Look at data (dashboards, customer feedback channels, internal partner team feedback) to check progress (on product success, platform performance) -Take any actions necessary (filing bugs, resolving a SEV) * Supporting your cross funct......Read More
3080 Views
3 requests