Episode 6. Proof of Work as Insurance Part 1: A conversation with Tanushree Panigrahy

"I think those were the moments when I felt I need to make something real. Something real that I can see and build that confidence in myself."

Welcome to a new episode of Women Who Ship, the podcast for women in tech who are tired of proving themselves in rooms they have already earned a place in and are ready to lead like they know it. Today, we are kickstarting an incredibly timely conversation about a concept that might just be your ultimate career safety net: Proof of Work as Insurance.

Our special guest is Tanushree Panigrahy, the founder of the Stay Ahead of the Curve Substack and community. Tanushree has spent nearly two decades navigating tech transformations, bridging the gap between global systems integrators (GSIs) and the vendor side of the table. When she recently decided to leap into an entirely unfamiliar vendor ecosystem, she found herself starting completely cold. Nobody knew her, and nobody knew her skills.

Instead of waiting for someone to hand her a project or waiting for a formal title to catch up, Tanushree did something revolutionary: she stopped chasing the certification hype and started building. She became her own judge, role-playing customer scenarios to prove her capabilities to herself first.

In this episode, we talk about why certifications alone are not enough in the AI era, how to leverage your hard-earned experience as a strategic asset, and why the messiest parts of tech disruption still require human-led change management, empathy, and stakeholder coordination.

Your next steps:

• Start with a small experiment: Do not wait for permission or a perfect role to start experimenting. Your homework this week is to identify one small, everyday problem in your daily life or workflow. Use a free generative AI tool to build a simple solution. Start with a single prompt and focus on making something real, even if it is not perfect. Proving to your own brain that you can ship a solution is where true self-trust begins.

• Capture your proof of work: If you want help actually documenting what you are shipping, grab my free Get Recognized at Work: 5 Steps to Document and Show Your Impact playbook. It walks you through a simple weekly “Recognition Retro” so you can turn experiments like this into clear impact statements you can use in 1:1s, performance reviews, and promotion packets.

• Connect with Tanushree:

  • Substack: Stay Ahead of the Curve

  • LinkedIn: Tanushree Panigrahy

• Subscribe: Be sure to subscribe to Women Who Ship on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you do not miss Part 2 of this deep dive!

Let's go ship some good stuff together.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and guest alone and do not reflect the views of their respective employers.

Theme Music: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/