Why I Joined Thumbtack as a Technical Program Manager

I have worked as a program & project manager for both large and small companies for the past 6+ years. During that time I have gotten to work with a ton of smart people and build some really fun tech, including predictive phone routing, incrementality test design, and blockchain ecosystem visualizations. Even more importantly, during that time I’ve also learned what types of companies I thrive in and which companies are much less suited to my working style.

What I Was Looking For:

I loved the fast pace of a startup and getting to work on completely innovative projects at my prior jobs. However, I didn’t like working every weekend, frequent strategic pivots, and the lack of resourcing that prevents you from building infrastructure for the long term. And at the larger companies, while I enjoyed the additional resourcing and better work life balance, I found that some became mired in red tape and it was difficult to get buy-in to experiment and try new things. When I started searching for my next opportunity, I wanted to find a company that hit a middle ground — clear vision and market fit, but still not so established there was little appetite for innovation. I think I was able to find this sweet spot when I joined Thumbtack.

What I Found at Thumbtack:

I am the Lead Technical Program Manager (TPM) for the Marketing Tech team at Thumbtack, which means I get to work with our marketing team as well as marketing engineering, applied science, and data scientists on building out our marketing tech stack. We not only work on marketing automation, but also data infrastructure and machine learning to take our marketing to the next level.

My favorite parts of my job:

• The team: I can honestly say across the board, this is one of the best sets of teams I have ever worked with. Not only is everyone insanely talented, but they are also highly collaborative and dedicated to their work. This makes my job of TPM not only easy but fun, as everyone from marketing to applied science bands together really well to solve problems and come up with new and exciting solutions. A key example of this is the XFN quarterly brainstorms we have to set direction for channels such as SEM and Lifecycle marketing, where everyone from fresh out of college engineers to marketing channel directors come together to bounce ideas around and determine the next set of opportunities to go after.
• The team…again: I also love being part of a larger TPM team with peers who have a role similar to mine. Sometimes a TPM is more of an embedded resource, so you are the only one serving that function. At Thumbtack, I have a group of talented peers to bounce ideas off of and learn from to better my skills — additionally, they are a ton of fun!
• The projects: I think I am especially lucky to work with the marketing team, as the projects we work on are complex (aka interesting) and have a huge impact on the company’s bottom line. I think our team is extremely sophisticated in both how we measure success and determine new areas of opportunity including personalization, spend optimization, and marketplace dynamics. Getting to help shape and launch these projects gets me excited to go to work everyday.
• The culture: Thumbtack has a great balance between people working hard but also making sure that everyone has balance in their workday. Since I work East Coast hours, it’s especially nice for me that meetings are standardized across the company during 12pm — 6pm EST (9am — 3pm PST), so I don’t have to work late every night. And unlike most start ups I have worked for, working during the weekend is very rare. This definitely helps keep me motivated and does a lot to prevent burnout.

Since joining Thumbtack, I have not only gotten to push forward innovative technology, but also have been given a lot of opportunities to grow my skills as a TPM. My manager has actively mentored me and focused on my career development, which has not always been true at other companies. Overall, Thumbtack has been a great fit for me and I feel very lucky to have found them!

My Advice:

My advice to anyone looking for a new job would be to focus on the industry and reputation of the companies you are looking at. As you are interviewing, assess if you would work well with the people you meet. Also consider the maturity of the company and their ways of working — all of these elements are key to having a job that you will stay at for the long haul.

Interested in joining Thumbtack? Check out our open roles at thumbtack.com/careers.