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Apr 25, 2022

Abnormal Engineering Stories, Episode #8: Becoming an Effective Engineering Leader

In episode 8 of Abnormal Engineering Stories, Kevin interviews Saminda Wijegunawardena, an engineering leader who is no stranger to fast-growing enterprise startups.

Key Insights

Saminda led Box's Application Engineering team as it scaled to 50M+ users and 100k customers.

Engineering leadership styles must adapt to fit different organizational environments and team dynamics.

Effective engineering leadership requires personalized coaching approaches tailored to individual leaders.

Experience across contrasting domains like Pixar and Box develops versatile engineering leadership skills.

As a long-time VP of Engineering at Box, Saminda Wijegunawardena is no stranger to fast-growing enterprise startups. He experienced Box’s rapid growth and constant evolution, and led its Application Engineering team as Box scaled to 50M+ users and 100k customers. The company’s growth and journey are ones that many startups aim to emulate and learn from.

Prior to Box, Saminda was an engineering leader at Pixar, a company with very different ambitions and plans. Saminda worked on some of the most iconic animated films of our time, including Toy Story 3, Up, WALL-E, and Ratatouille. Creating the world’s best digital stories and movies certainly requires a very different set of engineering challenges and leadership skills.

In this interview, Saminda and I discuss:

  • How engineering leadership and culture differ across organizations

  • The ways he has adapted his leadership style to fit the environment and team

  • His personalized approach to coaching leaders

We hope you enjoy it! Please do subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

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