As engineers, we’re taught to love clean inputs and predictable outputs. Build the right architecture, apply the right pattern, get the right result. But leadership? Leadership is murky. It’s messy. The input is a conversation, and the output is… a mystery.

I spent years thinking I could manage people the same way I debug code: diagnose, fix, move on. But what I’ve learned, what I keep learning, is that leadership lives in the in-between: the hard conversations, the quiet misalignments, the unpredictable reactions.

Traditional management says: design the right system, define the right metrics, and the rest takes care of itself.

My lived experience says: the system is being shaped by each conversation and human action.

So now, I write about that. The human side of software delivery. The emotional physics of engineering teams. The uncertainty that no dashboard can measure.

I share what I’ve learned so far, and what I’m still figuring out, to help other leaders and managers find their footing in the messy middle.