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.
Kevin Wang

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.
Related Posts

July 30, 2025

July 28, 2025

July 22, 2025
Get the Latest Email Security Insights
Subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates on the latest attacks and new trends in the email threat landscape.