Exploring the people manager path

For TPMs, the people manager path goes in two directions for most companies in tech: SDM or TPM manager. Both of these paths switch focus from individual contributions to the company’s success and instead focus on your ability to bring success through others. By growing the careers of the people that report to you, their contributions grow, and the collective contributions of your team grow. The difference in the paths is the composition of your team as well as your mobility upward. Each company is different, but this is true for the Big Five companies that I interviewed for this book. As you will see in an example later, companies outside of the Big Five, or really any of the top tech companies, have their own progression route that may not differentiate between these two people manager paths.

The journey of a people manager can bounce between both SDM and TPM manager. Let’s take a look at the journey of a people manager that held...