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 helps him lead with clarity and energy.

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 to hear from you!

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 ML engineers need both technical and product knowledge, and the importance of balancing leadership and engineering skills in their roles.

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 to hear from you!

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 the ecosystem you’re working in rather than the language itself. We also discuss Productboard’s code base and why we are working with two main tech stacks – Ruby on Rails and Kotlin/Spring Boot.

Jany, who went from IC to management before returning to the IC track and incorporating the best of both roles in his current position, talks about how being able to move seamlessly between multiple languages allows him to do his job more effectively.

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 to hear from you!

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.

Claudiu, whose career path included stints at Meta and DocuSign as well as founding a couple of his own companies, also offers some sound advice for engineers looking to move up the ladder. We also explore how candidates can assess whether they are more of a staff or senior staff fit, and what it means to be a product engineer these days.

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 to hear from you!

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 those looking to take a step up the career ladder or simply to better understand the day-to-day of Staff+ Engineers. The panelists explain the skills and traits needed to be successful in this role, including technical expertise, leadership, and communication skills, as well as what kinds of projects will help you land that golden promotion. In addition to sharing their own career journeys, Alice, Dmitry, and Tomáš also highlight the books, podcasts and social media they turn to for the latest tech and engineering leadership trends.

After listening to the episode, be sure to read the reading and listening recommendations from our guests:

Readings:

• Staff Engineer: Leadership Beyond the Management Track
• The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
• Boring Tech Club
• The Staff Engineer's Path: A Guide for Individual Contributors Navigating Growth and Change
• The Effective Manager

Podcasts:

• Soft skills engineering
• Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
• Software engineering daily

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 to hear from you!

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 still has much to learn. After more than a decade in tech, Hussien says he still often turns to his peers when tackling new challenges and explains how regular one-to-ones can truly help redefine your career goals.

In addition to his mentoring commitments, Hussien shares his job advice and musings in a weekly newsletter geared toward junior developers and actively posts videos on LinkedIn. His ADPList profile can be found here.

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 to hear from you!

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 establishing strong networks both in and outside the office, why feedback matters, the reality of imposter syndrome, and how engineers can advance their careers without crossing into the management track.

After listening to the podcast, be sure to check out Ralph’s reading recommendations:

• The Elements of Style
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
• It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences
• Writing Well For Work and Pleasure: The New Writer's Guide to Producing Great Content
• Speak So Your Audience Will Listen: 7 Steps to Confident and Authentic Public Speaking
• Gravitas: Communicate with Confidence, Influence and Authority
• Effective Java
• Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
• Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems (Martin also has great content on
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@kleppmann)
• Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track (and site https://staffeng.com/)

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 to hear from you!

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 transitioning to full-time coaching, shares the patterns she has identified that lead to success for leaders in all fields. She highlights and explains the need to cultivate open-mindedness, to prioritize long-term growth over short-term gains, and to take regular time to self-reflect. She further explores the most important thing for leaders: to use those methods to tune their leadership style to each new situation and challenge.

To learn more about Ramona and her work, visit www.ramonashaw.com, listen to her podcast The Manager Track, or find her on LinkedIn or Instagram.

To learn more about how BetterManager could help you become a stronger leader through an evidenced-based combination of Coaching, Group Skills Training, Actionable Assessments, and E-Learning, visit www.bettermanager.us

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 to hear from you!