6 Principles for Building a World Class TPM Team

DoorDash engineering director Sophia Vicent's comprehensive guide to building world-class Technical Program Manager teams. The six principles: 1) Strong leadership position - TPMs should be centralized reporting to head of engineering, maintaining neutrality while embedding with teams. 2) High leverage - target 50:1 engineer-to-TPM ratio, focusing on complex cross-functional initiatives. 3) Fierce prioritization - 'The work we decline is just as important as the initiatives we take on,' focusing on highest impact. 4) Technical clarity - TPMs must have deep technical knowledge to identify gaps and drive holistic solutions. 5) Blameless culture - leading through influence and maintaining neutrality to surface and resolve issues. 6) Organizational recognition - teams should actively seek TPM help for complex, critical problems. The centralized structure creates synergy, preserves impartiality, provides specialized leadership, remains lean, and enables organization-wide flexibility. Success comes from TPMs being valued for strategic thinking, technical contributions, and operational excellence.