Leadership on Greg Herlein

Engineering Middle-Management to become extinct?

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:01 -0800

You can’t lead From hehind anymore. For twenty years the path to Engineering leadership had a well-worn groove: write code for a few years, get “promoted out of” writing code, spend the rest of your career managing budgets, headcount, and status reports. The further up you went the less technical you were expected to be, and nobody blinked. That era is over. Not ending. Over.

The Bosses Are Coding Again

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 00:00:01 -0800

Somewhere in the last year, a bunch of us who hadn’t shipped real code in years quietly started shipping again. Not reviewing it. Not architecting it in a doc and handing it off. Actually building it. And loving it.

Procedures Travel. Knowledge Stays Home.

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 00:00:01 -0800

A couple weeks ago I wrote that your organization has to learn as fast as your best AI adopter. Externalize, combine, socialize, internalize. Run Nonaka’s spiral or get left behind. A bunch of you wrote back with the same question: okay, but where does the knowledge actually go?

Your Organization Must Learn As Fast As Your Best AI adopter

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:01 -0800

Everyone is asking the wrong question. “How do we adopt AI agents?” “Which tool?” “What’s the right policy?” Wrong questions. The right question is: how does your team turn what one person learned on Tuesday into something everybody on the team uses by Friday?

The Future of Software Engineering: What I Know and How I Know It

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:01 -0800

A recent industry retreat of senior engineering practitioners published their findings on where software development is heading. Reading it felt like someone had been reading my mind — and the minds of the people I follow online — and synthesized it all into one document. When a lot of people arrive at the same conclusions independently, that’s signal worth paying attention to. Here’s my take on each major theme.

The End of the Glorified Babysitter

Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:01 -0800

There’s a reckoning coming for a specific type of software engineering manager. Not the good ones. The ones who turned themselves into human Jira routers. The ones whose primary skill is translating documents into tickets and running standups. Those jobs? Gone. Faster than you think.

Where I Learned Excellence

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:01 -0800

I’ve been thinking a lot about excellence lately. Not the motivational-poster kind. The real kind – the kind that gets baked into your bones when you’re twenty-two years old and surrounded by people who simply will not accept anything less. For me, that happened on a nuclear submarine.

Foundations of High-Performance Engineering Teams

Sat, 23 Nov 2024 00:00:01 -0800

The US Navy gave me a solid foundation in leadership and operational excellence. But translating that into the business world requires a few more things.

Guest Appearance: Women in STEM Podcast

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 00:00:01 -0700

I had a lot of fun being interviewed by Aimee Vincent-Bunn who hosts the fabulous Women in STEM podcast.

Developing Leaders in the post-COVID Era

Sun, 19 May 2024 00:00:01 -0800

I’ve been a “leader-of-leaders” for a long time. It’s changed post-covid. But when I talk to some Engineers about the difference between “Leader of Others” and “Leader of Leaders” they don’t know what I’m talking about. So I thought I’d blog about it, and maybe even learn more myself.

Dream Teams

Sat, 27 Apr 2024 00:00:01 -0800

A friend was telling me about “Dream Teams” at Netflix and I realized that is exactly what I have been trying to build/encourage around me. That is what I want!

Guest Appearance: Software Synergy Podcast

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 00:00:01 -0700

I had a lot of fun being interviewed by James Holder for the Software Synergy Podcast. You can listen on Spotify or Apple.

September Update

Sat, 24 Sep 2022 00:00:01 -0700

Three months since I posted, so here’s some random thoughts and updates.

BrightSign!

Mon, 20 Jun 2022 00:00:01 -0700

What’s old is new again: I’ve joined BrightSign as their Head of Software Engineering!

Engineering Leadership 321

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 21:30:29 -0700

I’ve come to firmly believe that Engineering Leadership has a 3-2-1 principle to create Engineer happiness, which is a key prerequisite for high performance Engineering teams.