Beyond Coding Why Coding Skills Won’t Get You To Staff Engineer
Dec 17, 2025
Praveen Murugesan, VP of Engineering at Samsara, shares his insights on evolving from simply executing code to driving business impact. He emphasizes the importance of engineers owning customer outcomes and making informed decisions. Praveen argues that product managers shouldn't handle project tracking and highlights how curiosity can boost career growth. He dispels myths about the staff engineer role, showcasing that impact, not team size, is what matters. Engaging stories and practical advice make this discussion a must-listen for aspiring product-focused engineers.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Product Engineers Own The Through-Line
- Product engineers pair deep technical skill with customer and business context to shorten solutioning and ship better products.
- Praveen Murugesan says they act as technical DRIs and see the through-line from discovery to iteration.
Make Engineers The Project Owners
- Let engineers own project tracking and execution; product managers should focus outward on customers and strategy.
- Assign technical DRIs for team-level projects and use technical PMs only for cross-team complexity.
Curiosity Plus Focus Is The New Leverage
- AI and tooling lower build friction, so the real advantage is who understands the business and uses tools to solve the right problems.
- Curiosity plus focus becomes the strongest multiplier for engineers in the AI era, says Praveen Murugesan.