Beyond Coding: Thriving as a Thinker in the Age of AI with Manisha Deshpande

From Software People Stories by PM Power Consulting

March 29, 2026 · 37 min

About this episode

Manisha Deshpande discusses her career journey and insights on thriving in the AI era.

In this special Women’s Day episode of Software People Stories , Gayatri sits down with Manisha Deshpande , VP, Digital Platform Engineering at Neurealm , for a deeply reflective conversation on career evolution, motherhood, leadership, and thriving in the AI era. Manisha’s journey begins in the early 2000s — renting desktops with friends, coding in C++, and working at startups before “startups” were cool. A pivotal on-site experience early in her career changed how she viewed engineering — from writing code to understanding customer impact. Across 25 years in technology — from digital asset management to identity & access management, from services to product engineering, from engineering leadership to heading UX Centers of Excellence — Manisha shares the inflection points that shaped her: Choosing to intentionally slow down during certain seasons of life Moving from domain specialist to product mindset thinker Bridging design and engineering Leading horizontally across business units Preparing teams for AI not just technically — but mentally She speaks candidly about: Why “letting go” without regret is powerful The importance of showing up every day Building a support system…

People in this episode

Host: Gayatri

Guest: Manisha Deshpande

Topics covered

career evolution
leadership
AI
motherhood
engineering
product mindset
resilience

Keywords

AI
career evolution
leadership
engineering
product mindset
resilience
motherhood

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Neurealm