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Vasanth Arunachalam
Director, Technical Program Management, Meta
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Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program Management • February 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
3164 Views
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program Management • February 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
3157 Views
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program Management • February 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
2813 Views
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program Management • February 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
2612 Views
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program Management • February 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
2272 Views
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program Management • February 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
2147 Views
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program Management • August 10
I’m assuming the question is about setting a ‘team’ vision/mission and one doesn’t exist yet. The mission statement is the “What” and the vision statement is an ambitious future state of what the world might look like when you accomplish your mission. A crisp vision/mission statement serves as a......Read More
2063 Views
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program Management • February 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
1711 Views
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program Management • February 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
1405 Views
Vasanth Arunachalam
Meta Director, Technical Program Management • May 4
I love this question. Typically one does not boot strap their career as a Technical PM, at least not until recently (Some companies including Meta are hiring Technical PM interns now who start their career as a TPMs which is great). So the most common TPM career progression stems from Engineering......Read More
1392 Views
Credentials & Highlights
Director, Technical Program Management at Meta
Formerly Microsoft
Top Product Management Mentor List
Product Management AMA Contributor
Lives In San Jose, CA
Knows About Building a Product Management Team, Product Management Skills, Technical Product Mana......more