For years, developers have wrestled with one of the most repetitive and overlooked challenges in building digital products: managing images and video at scale. As applications grow more immersive and visual, media handling has become a bottleneck for innovation. Sanjay Sarathy explores how automation and AI are redefining the role of developers in the content pipeline, freeing them to focus on creativity and performance instead of repetitive infrastructure. He discusses how Cloudinary’s intelligent approach to image and video optimization allows teams to move faster, ship better products, and create richer digital experiences without compromising speed or control.

Drawing from Cloudinary’s experience powering media for over 11,000 customers, Sanjay shares real-world examples of how developers are using automation and composable infrastructure to push boundaries from startups scaling globally to enterprises handling billions of media assets daily. His perspective reframes automation as a creative partner rather than a technical shortcut.

What happens when a developer-focused company grows to a global scale without sales pressure or venture funding? Cloudinary’s story challenges every SaaS growth cliché. Sanjay Sarathy unpacks how Cloudinary built a thriving Product-Led Growth (PLG) motion that attracts thousands of new developers daily, not by selling harder, but by serving better. He discusses how the company’s dual go-to-market model balances enterprise sales with self-service adoption, allowing technical users to experience value before ever speaking to sales. In this episode, Sanjay offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at what makes PLG work for developer audiences, from crafting frictionless onboarding experiences to embedding education and community trust into the product itself. For technical founders, product marketers, and growth strategists, it’s a masterclass in sustainable scaling.

With two decades of experience leading global growth strategies for SaaS companies, Sanjay has helped shape Cloudinary’s evolution from a developer tool to a foundational infrastructure platform, all while staying true to its user-first ethos.

Developers are no longer just coders; they're creators driving innovation, user experience, and business outcomes. Yet many organizations still treat developer experience as an afterthought. Sanjay Sarathy dives into what today’s technical talent truly values: autonomy, continuous learning, and tools that augment, not replace, their creativity. He explores the rise of “developer experience” as a business priority, fueled by APIs, SDKs, and AI tools that unlock new levels of speed and quality.

Through Cloudinary’s journey, Sanjay discusses how to design systems that developers actually love to use, systems that reduce friction, encourage experimentation, and integrate seamlessly into evolving tech stacks. This isn’t about hype; it’s about empowerment. As a global leader driving Cloudinary’s developer ecosystem, Sanjay brings firsthand insight into how developer needs have evolved and how empowering them leads to faster innovation, happier teams, and stronger product outcomes.

In an era where hypergrowth often means hyperfunding, Cloudinary stands out as an exception, a fully bootstrapped company that scaled globally, profitably, and sustainably. Sanjay Sarathy shares the principles behind this success: a relentless focus on product quality, a culture of trust within the developer community, and the long game of delivering real value over vanity metrics.

He explains how Cloudinary’s disciplined approach to growth, balancing innovation with operational prudence, allowed it to earn the loyalty of 11,000 paying customers and millions of developers without external investment. The result: a company that grows because it’s indispensable, not because it’s funded. As one of the leaders driving Cloudinary’s self-service motion, Sanjay offers rare insight into what sustainable SaaS leadership looks like and why profitability and purpose can coexist beautifully in modern tech.