A BIOPICSix years. One craft.

PHANI SAI RAM
MUNIPALLI.

I'm a Product Manager.

Product Manager in the Bay Area. Six years shipping software at IBM and Walmart. Four as an engineer, two as a PM. On the side, I build with AI, write Phani's Product, and host The Hustle Chapters.

ProductAIPlatformPodcast· Bay Area, CA
CHAPTER 01 · The Story

Engineer first.
PM by craft.

Hello! I'm Phani Sai Ram Munipalli, a Product Manager in the Bay Area. For the past 6 years, I've been dedicated to building and shipping technology products. From the fast-paced environment of startups to the scale of industry leaders like IBM & Walmart.

My career began at the heart of technology. In Software Engineering. This hands-on experience gave me a fundamental understanding of what it takes to build great products from the ground up and sparked my passion for bridging the gap between technical execution and strategic vision.

My philosophy is that the most successful products are built on a foundation of deep user empathy. My approach is always to start with the customer, collaborating closely with Data, Engineering, Design and Business teams to translate user insights into elegant and impactful solutions.

My background provides a distinct advantage: I am fluent in the languages of both product and engineering. This allows me to architect a compelling product vision while understanding the technical nuances, foster seamless collaboration between technical and non-technical teams, and ensure we not only design the right product but also build the product right.

“Technology does not just solve problems. It changes the shape of what is possible.”
6
years industry
10+
products shipped
6
countries listening
8
awards won
CHAPTER 02 · The Episode Guide

Every role. The full arc.

Full timeline. Startups to IBM to Walmart, software engineering to product management. Most recent first.

Season 1 · 10 Episodes
2017 to Now
  1. EP 10
    July 2024 to Present
    Product· Full-Time

    Product Manager III

    Walmart · U.S. Last Mile Delivery
    AI/MLCross-Functional LeadershipProduct Strategy
  2. EP 09
    Feb 2024 to May 2024
    Product· Internship

    Product Management Intern

    VComply · Risk & Compliance

    Reduced policy creation time by 85% with a GPT-4o (Azure OpenAI) multilingual generator (10 languages), resulting in 40% enterprise adoption.

    LLMsUser ExperienceProduct ExecutionDocument Search
  3. EP 08
    May 2023 to Aug 2023
    Product· Internship

    Product Management Intern

    Walmart · U.S. Last Mile Delivery

    Authored and drove alignment on 2 detailed PRDs and 7 product one-pagers in an accelerated timeline of eight weeks; secured stakeholder buy-in across Business, Engineering, Data Science, and UX Design teams.

    Product StrategyData AnalysisProduct DiscoveryUser Research
  4. EP 07
    Jan 2023 to May 2023
    Product· Part-Time

    AI Research Assistant

    SJSU Research Foundation · Explainable AI · Conversational Agents

    Advanced Conversational AI research by reviewing 24+ papers monthly, developing novel datasets with ChatGPT, and co-authoring conference papers.

    AI ResearchNLPDataset DevelopmentPython
  5. EP 06
    Jan 2023 to May 2023
    Teaching· Part-Time

    Teaching Assistant

    SJSU · Computer Applications

    Co-managed a Python course for 75+ undergrad students, improving coding skills through hands-on workshops.

    PythonTeachingCurriculum DevelopmentMentorship
  6. EP 05
    Aug 2022 to Jun 2023
    Engineering· Volunteer

    Chief Technology Officer

    SJSU · Indian Student Organization

    Led technical direction and web development using the MERN stack, collaborating with a distributed team to integrate various services for university events.

    MERN StackLeadershipWebCollaboration
  7. EP 04
    Jun 2020 to Jul 2022
    Engineering· Full-Time

    Software Engineer II

    Walmart Global Tech

    Architected 16+ microservices and re-engineered 8 REST APIs to reduce p99 latency by 32%, while driving initiatives that achieved 2-day delivery for 60% of orders.

    MicroservicesSystem ArchitectureAPI DesignPerformance Tuning
  8. EP 03
    Mar 2018 to Jun 2020
    Engineering· Full-Time

    Software Engineer I

    IBM India Pvt Ltd

    Developed and maintained a highly available microservices architecture for a large-scale payments platform, handling 8M+ transactions daily.

    MicroservicesJavaSpring BootHigh Availability
  9. EP 02
    May 2017 to Mar 2018
    Engineering· Internship

    Software Development Intern

    Pinapaka IT

    Developed and tested a critical Java middleware component for a payment gateway integration, achieving over 80% unit test coverage for high reliability.

    JavaMiddlewareUnit TestingPayment Gateways
  10. EP 01
    Jan 2017 to Mar 2017
    Engineering· Internship

    IoT Engineering Intern

    Miracle Software Systems Inc

    Led a team of 4 to win a 24-hour live hackathon and subsequently developed an RFID-enabled IoT ticketing system using Python and Raspberry Pi.

    IoTPythonRaspberry PiPrototyping
CHAPTER 03 · Built by Phani

Products I shipped on the side.

AI tools, iOS apps, open source, cloud builds, product research. Newest first. What you see is what shipped.

Ship Log  ·  21 products  ·  2022 to 2026

20224 products20236 products20241 product202610 productsISO-SJSU WEBINSEARCHAWS QR SAVERSUBSPIREGIFTGENUSER RESEARCHINTOOLHUSTLE CHAPTERSLINKPLUSAD CREATOR GPTSAFEWORD AIDAILY LENNYSTARTUP SUNSETSLOCANTDHVANIGLIDESYMMLLM-CIRCUITPASSLOGUEBRANDNAMERKNOTED
CHAPTER 04 · The Voice

Newsletter. Podcast. Essays.

Weekly thinking, long-form writing, and conversations with operators about the decisions that actually shipped their products.

PODCASTSeason 1 · Long-form

The Hustle
Chapters.

Unfiltered conversations with operators, founders, and product leaders about the decisions that actually shipped their products. Listeners across six countries.

Countries
6
Format
Long-form
Theme
Decisions
CHAPTER 05 · The Honors

Awards, badges,
recognitions.

Ten+ honors across the engineering and product chapters. From Walmart and IBM, to AWS, Product School, Mind The Product, JNTUK, and IIT Bombay.

1
Product Strategy Micro-Certification
August 2023

Product Strategy Micro-Certification

Product School

2
Leadership & Career Certification Program
June 2023

Leadership & Career Certification Program

San José State University

3
AWS Cloud Quest: Cloud Practitioner
January 2023

AWS Cloud Quest: Cloud Practitioner

Amazon Web Services

4
Product-Led Certified
December 2022

Product-Led Certified

Pendo & Mind The Product

5
Bravo Award
May 2021

Bravo Award

Walmart Global Tech India

6
Innovation Award
June 2021

Innovation Award

Walmart Global Tech India

7
Brighter Blue
July 2018

Brighter Blue

IBM India Pvt Ltd

8
College Representative Recognition
April 2017

College Representative Recognition

Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT Bombay

9
3rd Place · 24 Hour Code-A-Thon
December 2016

3rd Place · 24 Hour Code-A-Thon

Miracle Software Systems, Inc

10
2nd Place · National Project Presentation
Aug 2016

2nd Place · National Project Presentation

JNTU Kakinada

CHAPTER 06 · The Foundations

The stack. The schools.

Languages, frameworks, clouds. The tools I've shipped with. And where I learned to ship.

01

Cloud Technologies

Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services
Azure
Azure
Google Cloud
Google Cloud
IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud
02

Languages & Databases

Java
Java
JavaScript
JavaScript
Python
Python
MySQL
MySQL
MongoDB
MongoDB
HTML5
HTML5
CSS
CSS
03

Frameworks & Technologies

React
React
Spring
Spring
Android
Android
Node.js
Node.js
Kafka
Kafka
Camel
Camel
Angular
Angular
04

Tools & Platforms

IBM Watson
IBM Watson
Git
Git
Docker
Docker
Kubernetes
Kubernetes
Jenkins
Jenkins
Salesforce
Salesforce
Education
2011 to 2024
  1. Aug 2022 to May 2024
    Master's Degree in Software Engineering
    San José State University · California, USA
    • · Enterprise Software Platforms
    • · Cloud Technologies
    • · Machine Learning
  2. Aug 2013 to May 2017
    Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science & Engineering
    JNTU Kakinada, India
  3. Jun 2011 to Jun 2013
    Senior High School
    Narayana Jr College, Vijayawada, India
    • · Maths · Physics · Chemistry
CHAPTER 07 · End Credits

Let's connect.

Open to advisory roles, podcast guesting, speaking sessions, and collaboration on AI-native products and research. Pick any channel. I reply to all of them.