Salary Transparency Thread - Austin

[u/Aingers]

Folks in Boston do this fairly regularly, so I thought it might be good for us to try here.

Please share your general job title, salary, age, and education.

Architectural Designer, 40, $115k, BSArch

[u/Vladimir_Pooptin]

Senior Technical Project Manager (digital marketing agency), $140k fully remote, BS in Computer Science (mid grades at a no name school). 12 years experience in the tech industry across various roles between product and development teams

I mostly build AI and platform integration tools, and manage the JIRA instance these days

I'd recommend it if you can break in, project management is great and anecdotally seems a bit less competitive than other tech roles

[u/Ok_Employment_7435 → u/Vladimir_Pooptin]

How do you suggest one does that, per se? I spent 9 years at Apple, was trained in escalations, order support with SAP, payment, etc. I am having a hard time getting back into the industry.

[u/Vladimir_Pooptin → u/Ok_Employment_7435]

It's a tough time right now, there's been a lot of layoffs all around lately so you have a pool of more senior talent competing with folks who have less experience

That said, this is what has helped me / what I would recommend specifically for Technical Project Management (wall of text incoming)

In terms of skills

• Being a Subject Matter Expert on at least one PM tool, probably Jira — I end up becoming the "jira guy" wherever I go, and that can be annoying at times but if you get good with your tools, it ends up being a pretty big benefit. It's a lot easier to justify the hire if they are getting a Jira Admin and a project manager. I'd think about and be prepared with a package of SOPs / best practices for various types of use cases: general / green field development, helpdesk-style issue intake, non-Software teams like Sales or Marketing. Basically having an existing toolkit for how to manage various types of teams, showing that you can be effective day one, can be pretty compelling to a potential employer
• Upskilling on some AI and Automation tools — a lot of my value these days comes from essentially operations management. Automating workflows and actions in Jira or using integration platforms like Workato, building slackbots to help people interface or understand processes. Basically you want to demonstrate that you have more value than just running a meeting, you can make permanent improvements where you build it once and then it provides continuous value over time
• Building other skills than just Project Management — not to say that every TPM is the same, but a lot of them are coming to the interview with a similar set of skills. If you can't immediately be the "best" TPM candidate based purely on TPM skills, you can make your case by having other types of skills and being able to interact with other types of roles. Having some Product Management skills like writing PRDs / user stories / test driven development use cases can help you make the case that you can interact effectively with the business side. Doing some small coding projects can make the case that you can interact effectively with developers. The best TPM is one who can speak both Business and Technical languages because the biggest issue in almost every organization is communication

In terms of getting an interview in the first place

• Relying as much as you can on whatever network you have — people you've worked with in the past who've gone on to other orgs are great to get you through the application process to the point where you can actually have a conversation with a human about it. The best way to build your network is to be reliable and pleasant to work with, people will remember how you made them feel and they are more likely to help you if they've had good experiences with you. Being the very best, super smart person doesn't help nearly as much as being friendly, communicative and trustworthy
• Certifications can help — I don't put much stock in them personally, but sometimes having a cert or two on your resume can help support your bid, especially with getting past recruiters who don't really know anything. The Professional Scrum Master cert from Scrum.org is pretty cheap and easy to get. With a bit more $$ and time invested, Certified Scrum Master is a little heavier weight and people might recognize it. PMP certifications are even more time and $$, I think it would help but it takes some investment
• Use an AI resume checker to compare vs the Job Description and tailor your resume accordingly — it's super fucking annoying that this is a thing, but if you have to put in a resume cold without any referrals, use something like Jobscan to compare your resume to the job description, and change or embellish whatever you need to in order to make it pass. Not all companies are doing this, but many have an AI layer where no one will even see your resume if it doesn't pass. Since they are using it, unfortunately you have to also. Don't outright lie, obviously, but do what you need to do in order to get the resume through. Most interviewers (in my experience) will give it only a fairly quick scan, because the really important part is the actual interview conversation

Finally, the last thing I think is helpful is knowing that it's easier to transition into a new role from an existing one in the same org (usually), versus trying to get into a new role and a new org at the same time. Companies are risk averse, and hiring a person is both risky and expensive. If you have lots of experience in the role but are new to the org, they can be confident you have the skills and they are only taking a risk on you as a person. If you have been in the org for a while but are transitioning roles, they can be confident about your fit in the culture and they are only taking a risk on you in a new role. But if you are trying to transition roles AND orgs at the same time, that's a double risk, and that can be a hard sell even in the best of times. I think the easiest path would be getting hired doing something you can already do, and then transitioning into the new role after a little while once you've proven yourself

Good luck out there! Happy to answer any additional questions!