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GOOG has made a systemic push to eliminate the role starting ~3 years ago. At that time my M was a staff level IC TLM with 4 reports who was forcibly converted
by B-Con 1y ago
GOOG has made a systemic push to eliminate the role starting ~3 years ago. At that time my M was a staff level IC TLM with 4 reports who was forcibly converted to EM.
In those last 3 years I've only seen TLMs used to assist an overloaded EM.
The pattern I've seen is something like:
Principal EM
|- Staff EM (7 reports, project A)
|- Staff EM (8 reports, project B)
|- Staff IC (projects A, B, C)
|- Senior IC (projects A, B)
|- Senior IC (project C)
|- Mid level IC (project C)
|- Mid level IC (project C)
Maybe project C was just reorged under the Principal EM or maybe it's a speculative side project. But those last three are clearly clustered, there's no good line manager fit and the principal EM feels disconnected from the 2 mid level ICs. Project C is a bit of an island and projects A and B are taking up most of the EM's time.
So the Principal EM deputizes Senior IC on project C as a TLM until things have changed enough that there can be a dedicated EM. Eventually the TLM converts to EM, a new EM is brought in, or there's a reorg, etc.
Of the two times I saw saw it happen locally, both converted back to ICs after a year or two and noted that the role felt like being 70% IC and 70% EM.
Nowadays the TLM role doesn't exist so the principal would delegate most of the technical responsibilities of the M role, giving them nearly full control of project C, but would not give them a formal role. (I've been that senior IC for project C.)
(Edit for formatting.)
- twsted 1y agoCan someone explain the various acronyms?
- Jagerbizzle 1y agoEM = Engineering Manager IC = Individual Contributor
- Muromec 1y agoIC -- individual contributor, EM -- enginering manager, TLM -- technical lead manager
- dhx 1y agoDo you have a mapping to roles/levels[1], for example: Principal EM - USD$1.3m/yr per https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-engineering-manager/levels/l8 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en... Staff EM - USD$664k/yr per https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-engineering-manager/levels/l7 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en... Staff IC - USD$557k/yr per https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-engineer/levels/l6 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en... Senior IC - USD$410k/yr per https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-engineer/levels/l5 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en... Mid IC - USD$290k/yr per https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-engineer/levels/l4 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en... levels.fyi doesn't appear to use the term "Technical Lead". There is "Technical Program Manager" and "Technical Account Manager" that sound like they'd be similar (someone technical transitioning into a full-time non-technical role). And then roles such as "Product Manager" and "Program Manager" seemingly for those who are currently 100% non-technical in their work. Does the change mean the most competent solution architect who has successfully designed and implemented many complex systems from scratch is capped in salary package because they're not doing the important job of demanding those around them fill out TPS reports all day? [1] https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-engineer?country=254 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...
- joshuamorton 1y agoTPM, TAM, and PM have nothing to do with this. A technical lead is usually a semi-formal role for an IC or a TLM that implies that they are leading a project with other folks working on it. There are situations where the Mid, Senior, or Staff IC could all be a technical lead of various sized projects. > Does the change mean the most competent solution architect who has successfully designed and implemented many complex systems from scratch is capped in salary package because they're not doing the important job of demanding those around them fill out TPS reports all day? No.
- danpalmer 1y agoTPM and TAM are completely different roles. TPMs are essentially project or program managers across wider parts of the org, and the "technical" means they have something beyond a surface understanding of the technical aspects, but are likely not writing any code. TAMs are account managers in the sales org with a focus on giving clients more technical support or planning integrations etc. "Technical lead" is not a role profile or ladder, it's what you're doing. You could be a TL at L4 on a small project, and you could not be TL at L7 if it's a big enough project. All very subjective. The point of this thread is that there are teams with a manager who is the defacto TL for the projects the team is doing, so they have IC responsibilities, and then there are teams where the manager does manager things and there's one or more separate TLs. I've worked on teams in both structures, both in and out of Google, and whether TLMs vs EMs work well depends on so many factors: who the manager is, their management style, the org's priorities, the projects, etc.
- aix1 1y ago> At that time my M was a staff level IC TLM with 4 reports who was forcibly converted to EM. I am obviously not disputing your experience, but wanted to mention that this was not the standard pattern. The standard pattern for forced conversion at L6 (Staff) was either 6 or 7 reports (I don't remember exactly). > Principal EM I don't want to be overly pedantic, but there's no Principal EM on Google eng ladders and so it's not entirely clear which level you're referring to. The IC ladder runs Staff SWE (L6) - Senior Staff SWE (L7) - Principal SWE (L8) - Distinguished SWE (L9) The Eng Manager ladder runs EM II (L6) - EM III (L7) - Director (L8) - Senior Director (L9) P.S. I hope I got the EM II/III designations right. I think EM I is L5, though almost never seen in practice. P.P.S. Confusingly, the IC ladder allows a limited number of reports (the limit increases with level).
- johntiger1 1y agoYeah principal EM is confusing here. Wouldn't EM I report to EM II? At Meta it's typically M1 -> M2
- tgma 1y agoI think L5 Manager at Google is EM1 which is what Facebook calls M zero. So L6 manager (vast majority of line managers) would be EM II at Google.
- Thorrez 1y ago>> At that time my M was a staff level IC TLM with 4 reports who was forcibly converted to EM. >I am obviously not disputing your experience, but wanted to mention that this was not the standard pattern. The standard pattern for forced conversion at L6 (Staff) was either 6 or 7 reports (I don't remember exactly). I think you're both saying the same thing. By "forcibly converted to EM", I think B-Con was saying the person was given more reports.
- B-Con 1y ago> I am obviously not disputing your experience, but wanted to mention that this was not the standard pattern. The standard pattern for forced conversion at L6 (Staff) was either 6 or 7 reports (I don't remember exactly). Given more reports and forced to be on the EM track. I think 4 is still OK for L6 (L7 can have up to 19!). > I don't want to be overly pedantic, but there's no Principal EM on Google eng ladders and so it's not entirely clear which level you're referring to. I meant L7 EM - I have no idea why I wrote Principal (probably because I was moving too fast), and now it's too late to edit.
- kelnos 1y agoWait, so you have ICs who work on multiple projects, and report to a different manager depending on the project? That sounds like a nightmare. Having one manager to manage is usually enough work...
- SkyPuncher 1y agoIt’s generally just fine if they all boil up to the same manager and that manager has a direct line to that IC.
- p_v_doom 1y agoIn the company i work at this is the standard. Its all pure waterfall and its dreadfull
- ElevenLathe 1y agoIt's chaos. This is standard corporate management in 2025 though.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- zeroq 1y agoIt's actually quite common and it's called "matrix management". Multiple people to give you orders and no one to take accountability. You'd be surprised how wide spread it is.
- mytailorisrich 1y agoEverytime I see such charts and explanations it helps me understand how Musk could fire 80% of Twitter with no visible effect on product.
- dgoldstein0 1y agoExcept extreme outages? Their reliability went to shit for a while. Fortunately half their users and advertisers quit too so the load downscaled a lot
- johannes1234321 1y agoIn addition they reduced API by a lot, some backend and advertiser focussed things are gone and the big thing: we can't know what would have come.
- andriesm 1y agoI've always been perplexed when I see 100s-1000+ people work on software product development and very little happen with the product for YEARS while there are tons of obvious (to me) improvements possible. Only tiny bug fixes released on a pretty slow release cycle. Then I also just think of the twitter/X example. Occasionally one reads stories of how people get paid pretty hefty salaries to mostly just work very casually. Contrast with the usual software engineering types I know that work insanely hard solving difficult problems day-in and day-out. When I was younger I remember a lot of project managers (almost exclusively ladies in my environment back then) that mostly just ran around interrupting the programmers and relaying feedback and status and a lot of chitchatting and busy work. Often there can be tons of support roles, wellness officers and who knows what that can probably be slashed. What shocks me is when a lot of these really low value-add positions are given high seniority with crazy paychecks and very little real skill required and fairly low responsibility or accountability for anything vaguely tangible. I suspect in tech companies generating huge cashflows that almost seem decoupled from headcount in comparison to non-tech businesses, this stuff just get covered up. A big machine that is very profitable due to massive competitive advantage/network effects, can hide a ton of HR waste.