In this episode, Robin talks with Vinay Ram, VP of Product Engineering at Productboard, about leading high-performing teams, building trust fast, and driving a product-first mindset across engineering. They cover what makes product engineers different, how to balance speed with stability, why staff+ engineers are critical to scale, and how guilds, prototyping, and smart build-vs-buy decisions shape modern engineering culture. Plus, Vinay shares how taking real breaks and even building a cabin...
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In this episode, Robin talks with Vinay Ram, VP of Product Engineering at Productboard, about leading high-performing teams, building trust fast, and driving a product-first mindset across engineering. They cover what makes product engineers different, how to balance speed with stability, why staff+ engineers are critical to scale, and how guilds, prototyping, and smart build-vs-buy decisions shape modern engineering culture. Plus, Vinay shares how taking real breaks and even building a cabin...
In this episode, Robin talks with Vinay Ram, VP of Product Engineering at Productboard, about leading high-performing teams, building trust fast, and driving a product-first mindset across engineering. They cover what makes product engineers different, how to balance speed with stability, why staff+ engineers are critical to scale, and how guilds, prototyping, and smart build-vs-buy decisions shape modern engineering culture. Plus, Vinay shares how taking real breaks and even building a cabin...
In this episode, Robin interviews Žilvinas Girėnas, a Senior Engineering Manager at Productboard. They dive into Žilvinas’ experience leading a machine learning team focused on building Productboard AI. The discussion covers the team’s unique approach to working with AI, the challenges and strategies in hiring ML engineers, and their transition to building an internal AI platform. Žilvinas also shares insights on shaping the team’s delivery process with the Shape Up methodology, how...
In this episode, we examine how mastering multiple programming languages is a huge advantage in today’s rapidly evolving tech environment. Jany Koščo, Senior Staff Engineer at Productboard, explains that as a generalist not only can you better solve coding problems and meet customer needs, but you will also have more opportunities to advance your career. Jany shares his approach to tackling new languages and why it’s more important to have a thorough understanding of the complexities of ...
In the fourth episode of Season 2, we sit down with Claudiu Andrei, Site Tech Lead at Productboard’s San Francisco office, who’s in the process of building up two new teams to better serve our enterprise customers. We talk to Claudiu about what he considers when hiring staff and senior staff engineers, and what makes a candidate CV stand out. He walks us through the key steps of our interview process and discusses how to make an early impact when joining a company as a staff engineer. Cl...
Our third episode of Season 2 was a special live recording from this year’s WebExpo conference in Prague, where we discussed what it takes to become a Staff+ Engineer. We sat down with a trio of experts in the field – Alice Rum, Staff Software Engineer at SentinelOne, Dmitry Belyaev, Principal Frontend Engineer at Booking.com, and Tomáš Růžička, Staff Engineer at Productboard – to get their insights and advice on how to advance in today’s fast-paced tech environment.The talk is geared toward ...
In our second episode of Season 2, we chatted with Hussien Khayoon, Staff Software Developer at Shopify, about the undisputable importance and value of mentoring – regardless if you’re just starting out or already at the top of your game. He discusses how his mentoring roles at Bootcamp, Superpeer, and ADPList gave him a different perspective on teaching people and leading teams. His participation in these groups, Hussien explains, is his way of giving back and reminding himself that he ...
In our first episode of Season 2, we chatted with Ralph McTeggart, Principal Engineer at Productboard, about his decision to become a Tech Lead after wearing a manager hat for several years. He examines the benefits as well as the challenges he faced upon returning closer to the technical side, sharing how the skills he gained from serving in both positions are now helping him in his day-to-day at Productboard. Ralph discusses his approach to architecture and documentation, the importance of ...
In the seventh episode of our podcast series, Joshua welcomes Ramona Shaw, his BetterManager leadership coach. Ramona works with both emerging and experienced technology leaders to help them achieve their fullest leadership potential. In this inspiring episode, Joshua and Ramona explore the function and value of coaching, revealing actual examples of challenges they worked on together as catalysts for Joshua’s growth.Ramona, who spent years working in a corporate setting before transitio...
In the sixth episode of our podcast series, Joshua welcomed Timmy Ho, our first engineering hire in North America. An engineering manager in our Vancouver office, Timmy reflected on bootstrapping our new Canadian development center. The discussion touched on topics including product excellence, agile development, the importance of work-life balance, and how to build strong teams and culture. It also provided an intriguing glimpse into Productboard’s growth engineering and other exciting chall...
For the fifth episode in our podcast series, Joshua welcomed a former colleague and old friend, Disha Al Baqui, Principal Engineering Manager at Hulu. Joshua and Disha met in 2014 when they worked as individual contributors for the same company. Today, both are tackling entirely different challenges as engineering leaders.Besides catching up, the two discussed their paths to leadership, the importance of diversity in engineering, and how their leadership styles were shaped by the types of man...
For the fourth installment in our podcast series, Joshua welcomed Raz Shuty, Director of Engineering at Delivery Hero. This was an episode of firsts: the first non-productboard guest and the first episode recorded remotely. During a lively conversation, Josh and Raz discussed the challenges of leading during a crisis, the highs and lows of people management, and why you don’t have to be a manager to lead. Interested in joining our growing team at Productboard? Well, we’re hiring across t...
In the third instalment of our Engineering Leadership podcast, Joshua welcomes Daniel Hejl, our CTO and co-founder. During an interesting discussion around facilitating employee growth, Daniel highlights the importance of curiosity, clear goals, and regular, honest conversations in guiding employees towards that lighthouse in the distance.Interested in joining our growing team at Productboard? Well, we’re hiring across the board! Check out our careers page for the latest vacancies. We’d love ...
What metrics do you use to track team performance? What challenges are there when scaling teams? And how do you maintain healthy relationships at work while having the difficult conversations that help people grow? In part 2 of the conversation, our Director of Engineering, Vojtech Vondra, answers these questions and more – all posed by the Prague engineering leadership community. Plus, Joshua makes someone laugh for the first time in the podcast’s brief history.Interested in joining our grow...
Kicking off the podcast series, host Joshua Samberg is joined by our very own Director of Engineering, Vojtech Vondra. During a wide-ranging conversation, they discuss productboard’s efforts to expand the conversation around engineering leadership, Vojtech’s path to becoming an engineering leader, and the experiences that inspired their leadership philosophies.Interested in joining our growing team at Productboard? Well, we’re hiring across the board! Check out our careers page for the latest...
In this episode, Robin talks with Vinay Ram, VP of Product Engineering at Productboard, about leading high-performing teams, building trust fast, and driving a product-first mindset across engineering. They cover what makes product engineers different, how to balance speed with stability, why staff+ engineers are critical to scale, and how guilds, prototyping, and smart build-vs-buy decisions shape modern engineering culture. Plus, Vinay shares how taking real breaks and even building a cabin...
