Her Story
About Pandma
Padma Malladi is a technology and artificial intelligence leader with more than 20 years of experience building scalable, distributed, real-time, and AI-powered platforms. She currently serves as Senior AI Engineering Manager at GoodLeap, where she leads the AI portfolio for the Consumer Solutions Business Unit. Her work includes developing agentic AI platforms and AI-native applications, establishing architecture and deployment frameworks, building observability and quality-assurance capabilities, and creating repeatable practices for delivering generative AI products. She also leads AI-focused cultural transformation by expanding AI literacy and encouraging a Gen AI-first approach across the organization.
Before joining GoodLeap, Padma spent nearly five years at Amazon as a Technical Lead for eero Intelligence, where she worked on intelligent features such as alerts and personalized recommendations and designed scalable real-time event-streaming infrastructure. Prior to Amazon, she spent more than 18 years at IBM in technical leadership and architecture roles spanning AIOps, Watson, cloud computing, digital analytics, WebSphere Process Server, and big-data platforms. As a founding member of the Watson AIOps team, she helped develop data-connector architecture for large-scale observability data and became a technical authority on the platform. Her contributions earned recognition including Best in IBM, IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards, and an ISSIP Excellence in Service Innovation with Impact to Business recognition.
Padma holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Arlington and a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from a leading state university in India. She is currently pursuing an Executive MBA at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business. Her leadership philosophy combines technical depth, business awareness, curiosity, and a strong commitment to ethical and inclusive leadership. She encourages women in technology to develop deep expertise, establish confidence, conduct thorough due diligence, and remain committed to technical leadership. Looking toward the future of AI, Padma sees extraordinary opportunities to reinvent legacy systems and create entirely new products while emphasizing the importance of responsible development, ethics, creativity, and thoughtful consideration of AI's broader impact.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Pandma
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to being highly observant and paying attention to everything happening around me. I look beyond individual pieces of information and try to understand how they connect. By connecting different data points and understanding the deeper factors contributing to the success of various projects, I am able to identify patterns, generate new ideas, and uncover opportunities that may not have been obvious before.
This approach has helped me bring new perspectives to the business and identify areas where technology can create additional value. I believe that staying curious, understanding the bigger picture, and connecting seemingly unrelated information can lead to innovative solutions and meaningful business impact.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I have received is to hone in on my capabilities rather than trying to be everything. I learned the importance of developing both breadth and depth—understanding the broader project and business context while building deep expertise in one or two critical areas.
I was also encouraged by mentors and executive leaders at Amazon not to move away from technical leadership. There are relatively few women in technical leadership roles, and that perspective reinforced the importance of continuing to build my technical expertise while developing as a leader.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My advice to young women entering technology and AI is to establish your professional standing and be confident in your capabilities. Be detailed, conduct your due diligence, and strive to become exceptionally knowledgeable about whatever you are working on.
Do not remain at the periphery of a subject. Go to its roots, understand how it works, and develop genuine expertise. I also encourage women to consider opportunities in smaller organizations, where there can be greater accessibility to leadership and more opportunities to take ownership. Those environments can provide valuable exposure, accelerate learning, and offer insights that can help build a strong foundation for long-term career growth.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The opportunities in AI are enormous. We can build products and solutions that would have been difficult to imagine only a few years ago. There is also an opportunity to completely rethink and rebuild legacy systems, adding new value while potentially delivering solutions at a significantly lower cost.
At the same time, the rapid evolution of AI creates important challenges. We do not yet know exactly where the technology is heading, and issues such as malicious use, the proliferation of chatbots, ethics, tokenomics, and environmental impact require serious consideration. I am also concerned about the possibility of people becoming overly dependent on AI and losing some of their creativity and critical-thinking abilities if they stop engaging deeply with problems themselves.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values that are most important to me are ethics, equality, respect, and visionary leadership. I believe everyone should be treated with the same level of respect regardless of their position or place within an organization.
I do not believe strongly in rigid hierarchies. I value making sure that important messages and information reach people at every level of an organization, including those at the lowest levels of the hierarchy. As a technical leader, I also believe in having a clear vision while creating an environment where everyone feels respected and included.
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