InfoQ Homepage Leadership Content on InfoQ
-
Creating Impactful Software Teams That Continuously Improve
Culture shapes how we feel, work, and succeed, says Natan Žabkar Nordberg. People thrive in different environments—some need autonomy, others structure. Trust must be given first, not earned. Leaders should guide, not control, fostering autonomy and safety.
-
QConSF 2025: Humans in the Loop: Engineering Leadership in a Chaotic Industry
At QCon SF 2025, Michelle Brush of Google explored the evolving landscape of software engineering in her keynote “Humans in the Loop: Engineering Leadership in a Chaotic Industry.” She highlighted the complexities engineers face amid automation and AI, stressing the importance of conscious competence, higher-level problem-solving, and effective leadership in navigating today's challenges.
-
The Decisions You Don't Know You're Making: QCon Keynote Explores Hidden Choices in Engineering
Engineering teams make their most consequential decisions not in architecture reviews or sprint planning, but through invisible choices embedded in metrics, defaults, and everyday behaviors. In their QCon San Francisco 2025 keynote, Shawna Martell and Dan Fike challenged the industry's focus on documented decision-making while the decisions that truly shape systems and culture go unrecognized.
-
Testing Organizations' Widespread Adoption of Agentic AI, but Leadership Lags in Understanding
Nearly all software testing teams are either using or plan to use agentic AI, but many leaders admit they lack a clear grasp of testing realities, according to a recent survey of 400 testing executives and engineering leaders.
-
How Software Engineers Can Grow into Staff Plus Roles
Software engineers can boost their impact by helping other teams, focusing on business-driven work, and building strong relationships, David Grizzanti mentioned at InfoQ Dev Summit Boston. Growth can come from mentoring, setting cultural norms, thinking strategically, and designing a career path based on what motivates you.
-
Levelling Yourself up as a Software Engineer While Climbing through the Ranks
As software engineers grow into senior, Staff+, or principal roles, they take on greater responsibility, complex projects, and influence beyond code, Suhail Patel explained in his talk about growing oneself as a software engineer at QCon London. Growth isn’t linear; it requires mastering communication, strategy, and soft influence. Writing, speaking, and 1:1s can help to expand impact.
-
How Inclusive Leadership Can Drive Lasting Success in Tech Organizations
Inclusion isn’t something you do once; it should be woven into everything, from how you make decisions to how you structure teams and run meetings.. When people feel seen and heard, they contribute more fully and meaningfully, which sustains long-term success. Matthew Card gave a presentation about leading with an inclusive-first mindset at Qcon London.
-
DevSummit Boston: Humans in the Loop: Engineering Leadership in a Chaotic Industry
At the InfoQ Dev Summit, Google’s Engineering Director Michelle Brush addressed software leaders, emphasizing the evolving landscape of software engineering amidst rising automation. She championed a shift toward higher-level cognitive skills, systems thinking, and foundational knowledge, urging engineers to embrace complexity for enhanced resilience and decision-making in their work.
-
Applying Observability to Leadership to Understand and Explain your Way of Working
Leadership observability means observing yourself as you lead, treating yourself as the system that is under observation. Alex Schladebeck shared how narrating thoughts, using mind maps, asking questions, and identifying patterns helped her as a leader to explain decisions, check bias, support others, and understand her actions and challenges.
-
Lessons Learned from Growing an Engineering Organization
As their organization grew, Thiago Ghisi's work as director of engineering shifted from being hands-on in emergencies to designing frameworks and delegating decisions. He suggested treating changes as experiments, documenting reorganizations, and using a wave-based communication approach to gather feedback, ensuring people feel heard and invested.
-
How Software Developers Can Build Their Personal Brand to Elevate Their Influence
A strong public brand helps software engineers in job transitions and creates opportunities, while an internal brand builds credibility within your company. Pablo Fredrikson shared a story about how he helped a team struggling with a service issue to improve relationships. To build your brand, define your goals, take on visible projects, and be helpful. It benefits both you and the company.
-
Build Resilient Systems with Insights on AI, Multi-Cloud, Leadership & Security at QCon London 2025
From AI and ML to cloud, leadership, and modern data strategies, QCon London 2025, April 7-10, features 15 tracks of insights from 125+ senior practitioners. Discover practical solutions to scaling architectures, enhancing productivity, securing supply chains, and integrating cutting-edge technologies - all through real-world examples and actionable takeaways.
-
Managing High-Performing Software Teams
High-performing teams expect their leader to enable them to make things better, Gillard-Moss said at QCon London. Independence in software teams can enable decision-making for faster delivery. Teams need empathy, understanding, and guidance from their managers.
-
How to Improve Software Team Performance with Experimentation
According to Terhi Aho, experimentation is a way of thinking that guides action. By experimenting we can develop ways of working without a major change process. It can help software teams to solve problems in small steps, relieve their workload, and foster self-management.
-
Fostering High-performing Work Environments for Software Development
According to Eb Ikonne, leaders should provide a motivating challenge or mission so that the software engineering team understands what success looks like. They can provide an enabling structure for effective teamwork, address things that negatively impact team success, and reduce or remove friction. Coaching can help people discover how to work effectively together.