Principal, R&D Learning Products & Enablement

About the role:

R&D Enablement helps our Product, Engineering, and Design teams build the capabilities, access the knowledge, and develop the ways of working required to deliver for our customers. We are looking for a Principal, R&D Learning Products & Enablement to define the future of this function: understand how R&D teams work, identify the highest-value capability and performance needs, and translate emerging technologies and business priorities into scalable learning products and enablement solutions.

This is a senior, hands-on individual contributor role for someone who can move between strategy, technical product understanding, learning-product design, and end-to-end program delivery. You will build and prioritize the R&D Enablement roadmap; create tools, automations, knowledge solutions, and learning experiences; and work directly with R&D leaders, engineers, technology vendors, Global Learning & Development, People, and Business Technology partners to bring the right solutions to life.

This is a remote position open to candidates residing in the United States.

You should apply if:

• You want to impact the industries that run our world: Your efforts will result in real-world impact – helping to keep the lights on, get food into grocery stores, reduce emissions, and most importantly, ensure workers return home safely.
• You are the architect of your own career: If you put in the work, this role won’t be your last at Samsara. We set up our employees for success and have built a culture that encourages rapid career development, countless opportunities to experiment and master your craft in a hyper growth environment.
• You’re energized by our opportunity: The vision we have to digitize large sectors of the global economy requires your full focus and best efforts to bring forth creative, ambitious ideas for our customers.
• You want to be with the best: At Samsara, we win together, celebrate together and support each other. You will be surrounded by a high-calibre team that will encourage you to do your best. 

• Define the R&D learning-products and enablement strategy, roadmap, service model, and measures of success by developing a representative understanding of the needs of R&D employees and leaders at all levels.
• Build trusted relationships across R&D and conduct discovery to identify the most important capability, knowledge, adoption, and performance needs.
• Diagnose whether the appropriate solution is a learning experience, structured knowledge, workflow change, automation, self-service tool, community, manager resource, or another intervention.
• Stay current on emerging technologies, AI models, developer tools, and changes in how technical teams work; translate those developments into practical recommendations for how R&D employees can use AI and agents, validate their outputs, and determine where automation is appropriate versus where human judgment, expertise, or coordination remains essential.
• Build alongside R&D employees, technical leaders, Business Technology, Security, enterprise AI teams, and external technology providers to move high-value ideas from concept to practical tools, workflows, prototypes, and scalable adoption.
• Translate complex technical concepts into scalable learning products, developer-onboarding experiences, knowledge resources, playbooks, tools, automations, and communities that help R&D employees learn and self-serve.
• Create and test functional prototypes, tools, and workflow automations using AI-assisted development environments, APIs, low-code platforms, and other appropriate technologies.
• Develop clear product and program requirements, user stories, workflows, success criteria, and implementation plans for solutions requiring support from Engineering or Business Technology.
• Lead complex programs from discovery through launch and adoption, establishing clear ownership, milestones, dependencies, risks, communications, feedback loops, and decision points across interdependent teams.
• Make informed recommendations about what to build, configure, buy, integrate, transfer, scale, or stop.
• Own and continuously improve R&D and developer onboarding, ensuring employees can efficiently access the systems, knowledge, resources, and communities required to become productive.
• Define outcome measures that go beyond attendance and satisfaction, using adoption, behavior, capability, time-to-proficiency, self-service, efficiency, quality, and business evidence to determine whether solutions should continue, change, scale, transfer, or stop.
• Serve as the senior functional leader for R&D Enablement, creating clear ownership, reusable practices, and execution leverage across employees and partners contributing to the roadmap.
• Provide guidance and mentorship to more junior team members and partners while leading through expertise and influence rather than formal authority.
• Champion, role model, and embed Samsara’s cultural principles (Focus on Customer Success, Build for the Long Term, Adopt a Growth Mindset, Be Inclusive, Win as a Team) as we scale globally and across new offices.

Minimum requirements for the role:

• 8+ years of experience in technical product management, technical program management, developer enablement, technical learning, learning technology, product enablement, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience working directly with software engineering, product, data, or AI teams to deliver technical products, programs, or enablement solutions.
• Experience supporting Product, Engineering, Design, or another highly technical organization and developing a credible understanding of how technical employees work.
• Demonstrated ability to understand emerging technologies, developer tools, AI platforms, and technical workflows and translate them into practical adoption and enablement strategies.
• Experience partnering directly with engineers, technical leaders, and technology providers to understand product capabilities, implementation considerations, dependencies, and tradeoffs.
• Hands-on experience creating functional prototypes, tools, workflow automations, or self-service solutions using AI-assisted development environments, APIs, integrations, low-code platforms, or comparable technologies.
• Experience helping technical teams adopt AI-enabled tools and workflows, including identifying appropriate use cases, redesigning work, evaluating outputs, and establishing appropriate human judgment and oversight.
• Experience translating business and user problems into product requirements, user stories, workflows, success criteria, implementation plans, and scalable solutions.
• Experience defining strategy and roadmaps in an ambiguous environment, prioritizing a portfolio, and making build, configure, buy, integrate, or stop recommendations.
• Strong product and program leadership, including managing interdependencies, delivery risks, competing priorities, and decisions across teams you do not directly manage.
• Experience designing and scaling learning products, technical onboarding, knowledge solutions, developer education, or adoption programs.

An ideal candidate also has:

• Experience leading developer onboarding, developer education, engineering enablement, developer advocacy, or technical community programs.
• Experience with generative AI, developer-focused AI tools, retrieval-augmented generation, knowledge architecture, enterprise search, agentic workflows, or conversational user experiences.
• Experience working with external technology providers to design and scale product-adoption or enablement programs.
• Experience creating product requirements, process flows, integration requirements, technical documentation, or comparable delivery artifacts.
• Familiarity with adult-learning principles, performance consulting, learning-product design, or partnering with instructional and learning-experience designers.
• A portfolio of learning products, prototypes, internal tools, automations, knowledge solutions, or technical programs demonstrating hands-on building and measurable impact.
• Experience establishing or materially redesigning a technical learning, developer enablement, learning-product, or internal-product function.
• Experience measuring adoption and effectiveness and using evidence to determine whether a product or program should continue, change, scale, transfer, or stop.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through influence, provide functional direction, and create clarity and accountability across contributors without relying on formal authority.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate among technical, business, and learning audiences and influence senior stakeholders.