The Modern LeaderYou might be carrying an invisible gun
The more senior you get, the more your words start to sound like orders
Nov 11, 20254 min read
Kelly Vaughn
Sr. Engineering Manager at Zapier · kvlly.com
I write what I wish I'd had years ago: clear frameworks, honest takes, and practical tools for real leadership problems. No fluff, no guru speak—just advice from someone who's managed sprints, debugged production incidents at 2 AM, and explained technical debt to CEOs.
Most leadership content is written by people who've never led technical teams. The Modern Leader exists because engineering leadership has unique challenges that generic management advice doesn't address.
I write for individual contributors stepping into leadership roles, engineering managers drowning in meetings, and senior leaders who want to build teams that actually ship. My approach: take complex leadership concepts, break them into actionable frameworks, skip the motivational poster wisdom.
Recent posts
The hard parts of engineering management
The messy, very human challenges behind the job and how to stay steady through conflict, uncertainty, and loneliness
Nov 4, 20254 min read
Becoming an engineering manager without a technical background
Yes, you can lead engineers without coming from a technical background.
Oct 28, 20253 min read
What readers say
Kelly's newsletter is one of the very few emails I genuinely look forward to and enjoy reading. There is always something new to learn or a perspective you haven't considered before.
M
Matthias Miltenberger
Optimization Support Manager at Gurobi
At a time when newsletter subscriptions are exploding in popularity, Kelly's value-to-verbosity ratio is second to none. I look forward to reading her thoughts knowing that I'll learn something valuable every time.
M
Martin Gostisha
Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft
Working in the engineering talent space for over 13+ years I could count the number of engineering leaders that actually understand people on two hands and Kelly makes that cut.
T
Taylor Desseyn
VP of Global Community at Torc
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