January 21, 2025
As we enter 2025, staying updated on trends, insights and thought leadership in engineering is essential. At Jellyfish we produce our own thought leadership in the form of blogs, research reports and eBooks as well as podcasts, webinars and live events. We’re always looking to learn from the field too – whether that’s from a customer who’s ahead of the curve, a journalist covering the space, or an engineering influencer.
So, as we gear up for the year, we asked our own R&D team to share the platforms, influencers and sites they turn to to stay up to date on all things software development. Keep reading for the full list and be sure to tell us if there’s anyone we missed!
Andy Baio
Andy Baio, who has held roles at companies including Kickstarter and Yahoo!, launched his popular blog Waxy.org in 2002 and bills it as his personal sandbox – a place for writing, research, and explorations of the web. He writes on topics including internet culture, copyright and fair use, online community, independent and experimental media, and the intersection of art and technology. You can follow along here.
Anil Dash
Anil Dash is a tech thought leader whose work delves into the intersection of technology, ethics, and society. His writing bridges gaps between tech innovation and cultural impact. He’s been writing on his site, AnilDash.com, since 1999 – so yeah, he’s been through a thing or two. He also serves as VP of Developer Experience at Fastly.
Ben Werdmuller
Ben Werdmuller is the Senior Director of Technology for the investigative journalism and news organization ProPublica. He also writes on his own site werd.io about the intersection of technology, democracy and society.
Bruce Schneier
Bruce Schneier is a globally recognized expert in cybersecurity. His blog, Schneier on Security, is a trusted resource for insights on privacy, cryptography and the broader implications of security in a digital world.
Bryan Cantrill
Bryan Cantrill brings humor and depth to discussions on hardware, software, and systems design on his weekly podcast, Oxide & Friends. He also serves as CTO of Oxide Computer Company and has held leadership roles in tech over the past several decades at companies including Joyent and Sun Microsystems.
Camille Fournier
Camille Fournier, an engineering leader and author, provides pragmatic advice on managing teams and building effective organizations. Books include The Manager’s Path, Platform Engineering: A Guide for Technical, Product, and People Leaders, and she is the editor for 97 Things Every Engineering Manager Should Know.
Charity Majors
Charity Majors is a champion of observability, offering actionable insights into building resilient systems and thriving teams. She writes frequently on her blog Charity.WTF and is the co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb.io.
Chris Albon
Chris Albon is Director of Machine Learning at Wikimedia Foundation and has worked in mission-driven technology companies and non-profits for the last ten years, including disaster relief, healthcare, humanitarian aid, anti-corruption, conservation and now free knowledge. He merges his expertise in AI with a passion for open knowledge, making him a key voice in democratizing data-driven solutions. He is also the creator of two machine learning resources – machine learning flashcards and his book, the Machine Learning With Python Cookbook.
Corey Quinn
Corey Quinn blends humor with sharp cloud computing insights, making complex topics engaging and accessible. He is the Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group and writes the popular blog, Last Week in AWS.
Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow is a celebrated author and technologist, spotlighting issues including digital rights, open access and the societal impacts of tech. His blog, Pluralistic.net is a daily round up of news links and interesting stories in tech. Corey is also the author of The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation, a Big Tech disassembly manual, and several other science fiction works.
Dan McKinley
Dan McKinley offers a fresh perspective on software design, with thoughtful essays on architecture and decision-making on his site McFunley.com. He is the co-founder of Fiasco Partner, a boutique engineering and engineering leadership consulting firm, and previously held senior engineering roles at companies including Mozilla and MailChimp.
Daniel Terhorst-North
As a pioneer in behavior-driven development (BDD), Daniel Terhorst-North provides invaluable insights into software development practices on his blog DanNorth.net. He is also the author of The RSpec book, the first end-to-end treatment of BDD.
Ed Zitron
Ed Zitron’s commentary on tech culture and media provides sharp critiques and fresh perspectives on his site Where’s Your Ed At? He was previously a games journalist, writing for PC Zone, CVG, Eurogamer and others and has been published in The Wall Street Journal, USAToday, TechCrunch, and named one of the top 50 PR people in tech four times. Ed is also the founder of EZPR and a two-time best-selling author.
Erica Joy Baker
Erica Joy Baker is a passionate advocate for equity and diversity in the tech industry, sharing her journey and leadership lessons frequently on Bluesky. She previously served as CTO for the DCCC and has held several engineering leadership positions at companies including GitHub, Microsoft and Patreon.
Filippo Valsorda
Filippo Valsorda’s blog, Words.Filippo.io, dives into the intricacies of cryptography and systems programming, offering insights for tech enthusiasts and experts alike. He currently works on Google’s Go team and owns and maintains the cryptography packages (crypto/… and golang.org/x/crypto). He previously worked on Cloudflare’s cryptography team.
Graham Christensen
Graham Christensen explores infrastructure and NixOS development, delivering insights on reproducibility and system reliability for his site Determinate Systems, which he founded to support Nix adoption in the workplace.
Ines Sombra
Ines Sombra brings a wealth of knowledge on distributed systems and engineering leadership, offering practical insights for scaling teams and systems, writing frequently for the publication and online community, LeadDev. She is also the VP of Engineering, Core Systems at Fastly.
Irina Stanescu
Irina Stanescu is a former Staff Software Engineer / Engineering Manager turned Leadership Coach, Course Instructor and writer. She spent a decade-and-a-half doing hands-on engineering leadership for companies including Google, Uber and various early-stage startups. She is a Top Voice on LinkedIn and published a newsletter called The Caring Techie here.
Jacob Kaplan-Moss
Jacob Kaplan-Moss is a co-creator of Django, owner and consultant at REVSYS, and shares thoughtful advice on software development, team dynamics, and leadership on his site Jacobian.org. Past roles include Director of Security at Heroku, Engineering Supervisor at 18F and Head of Engineering at Hangar.
Jen Schiffer
Jen Schiffer combines technical expertise with humor, providing a fresh perspective on frontend development and the tech industry on her blog Live Laugh Blog. She was previously the Director of Community at Fastly and has held engineering roles at Glitch, Bocoup, and the National Basketball Association.
John Scott-Railton
John Scott-Railton is a cybersecurity advocate focusing on disinformation, spyware, and digital rights. For the past decade he has worked as a researcher at Citizen Lab where he focuses on electronic attacks and other threats to free and secure communications as well as spyware, phishing and disinformation.
Jonathan and Melissa Nightingale
As leadership coaches, Jonathan and Melissa Nightingale provide actionable advice for building healthy, high-performing engineering teams in their newsletter Raw Signal and through their firm Raw Signal Group, which provides management and leadership training for growing organizations. They have been featured in First Round Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post and others.
José Valim
José Valim is the creator of the Elixir programming language. He currently serves as Chief Adoption Officer at Dashbit and is the author of three technical books. He was previously a member of the Rails Core Team from 2010 to 2014 where he received the Ruby Hero Award as a recognition for his work on various Open Source projects.
Julia Evans
Julia Evans creates engaging, approachable content that simplifies complex technical topics on her blog JVNS.ca. She also publishes programming-themed zines on her site wizard zines. She was previously a Staff Engineer at Stripe.
Brian Krebs
Brian Krebs runs the popular blog Krebs On Security – trusted resource for security professionals that delivers in-depth reporting on cybersecurity threats and trends. He previously worked as a reporter for The Washington Post from 1995 to 2009, authoring more than 1,300 blog posts for the Security Fix blog, as well as hundreds of stories for washingtonpost.com and The Washington Post newspaper, including eight front-page stories in the hard-copy edition and a Post Magazine cover piece on botnet operators. In 2014, he was profiled in The New York Times, Business Week, NPR’s Terry Gross, and by Poynter.org.
Lara Hogan
Lara Hogan is an author, public speaker, and coach for managers and leaders across the tech industry. Lara and her team run workshops, roundtables and trainings on core management skills through her company, Wherewithall. She previously served as VP of Engineering at Kickstarter and an Engineering Director at Etsy and is a frequent contributor to LeadDev.
Lorin Hochstein
Lorin Hochstein explores complex systems and reliability engineering, offering valuable lessons for managing system uncertainty on his blog Surfing Complexity. He is currently a Staff Software Engineer at Airbnb and has held previous roles at companies including Netflix and SendGrid.
Mekka Okereke
Mekka Okereke runs the online store for Google Play – one of the largest online digital ecosystems on earth – covering both digital and physical products. Prior to Google he worked at Amazon, where he helped build the Amazon Appstore and launch the Kindle Fire.
Meri Williams
Meri Williams focuses on tech leadership, offering actionable advice for leading with empathy and impact in her writings for the online publication and community LeadDev. As an experienced CTO and technology leader, she has led teams ranging in size from 30 to 300, in a range of organizations from Procter & Gamble, to the Government Digital Service and award-winning online print company MOO. Meri is a trustee at Stonewall, the UK’s leading LGBTQ+ rights charity and together with her wife runs micro-charity One Goes Up to help young women and enby folks pursue STEM education and careers. She is currently the CTO of Pleo.
Mike Masnick
Mike Masnick provides incisive commentary on tech policy, intellectual property, and the societal impacts of emerging technologies on his blog Techdirt. Techdirt’s parent company, Floor64, also runs the Copia Institute, a think tank that explores the intersection of technology, innovation, law, policy, economics and business.
Molly White
Molly White critically examines blockchain and cryptocurrency, providing a balanced perspective on their promises and pitfalls, in her independent publication, Citation Needed. She also regularly appears in media, speaks at major conferences including South By Southwest and Web Summit; guest lectures at universities including Harvard, MIT, and Stanford; and advises policymakers and regulators globally. Her bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and Bloomberg Businessweek. She also runs Follow the Crypto, where she racks cryptocurrency industry spending in United States elections.
Nick Tune
Nick Tune works with CTOs and technology leaders to define strategy, shape architecture, and build high-performing continuous delivery teams. He is a Principal Consultant at Empathy Software and last year published the book Architecture Modernization.
Oge Opara-Nadi
Oge Opara-Nadi is VP of Engineering at Hey Savi where she leads the engineering team, driving rapid product development while championing equity, diversity and inclusion in the tech industry. An experienced public speaker, Oge regularly shares insights on leadership, engineering excellence as well as how to build diverse teams and foster inclusive cultures.
Pat Kua
Pat Kua is a trusted technology leader with more than twenty years of experience. His current mission is accelerating the growth of technical leaders through coaching, mentoring and training. Pat has previously worked to improve complex organizations and software systems as the CTO and Chief Scientist of N26 and as a Technical Principal Consultant at ThoughtWorks. He is a frequent keynote and conference speaker and author of three books. Pat runs a free newsletter for tech leaders called Level Up.
Rebecca Wirfs-Brock
Rebecca Wirfs-Brock is an object design pioneer who invented the set of design practices known as Responsibility-Driven Design (RDD). She shares her current research, musings, and many contributions to software design and development in the form of books, articles, blog posts, essays, papers, patterns, presentations, and podcasts on her site here.
Ruth Malan
Ruth Malan is a senior consultant with Bredemeyer Consulting and works primarily with architects – from enterprise architects and chief architects, to system and product architects and tech leads – and with teams, on system and software architecture and design. Her abundant writing, books and course modules are catalogued on her site, RuthMalan.com.
Sarah Wells
Sarah Wells writes about microservices, software architecture and leadership, blending technical depth with practical advice. She currently works as an independent consultant, specializing in microservices, engineering enablement, optimizing for flow and technical strategy and is the author of Enabling Microservice Success. You can learn more about her here.
Simon Willison
Simon Willison is the creator of Datasette, an open source tool for exploring and publishing data. He currently works full-time building open source tools for data journalism, built around Datasette and SQLite. Prior to becoming an independent open source developer, Simon was an engineering director at Eventbrite. He is also a co-creator of the Django Web Framework, and has been blogging about web development and programming since 2002 at simonwillison.net.
Simone Giertz
Simone Giertz is a Swedish inventor, maker, robotics enthusiast, TV host and professional YouTuber. She is the self-proclaimed queen of shitty robots and blends humor and creativity to make engineering fun and accessible. You can follow her work on SimoneGiertz.com.
Steve Yegge
Steve Yegge has more than 30 years of experience in tech, alternating between roles as a software engineer and engineering manager at companies including GeoWorks, Amazon, Google and Grab. In 2022 he joined Sourcegraph as their Head of Engineering to bring Google-style code search and code intelligence to the entire world. He is currently a Cody Evangelist.
Suhail Patel
Suhail Patel is a software engineer focused on designing and operating distributed systems.
He currently works at Monzo Bank as a Senior Staff Engineer, working with Go, Kubernetes, Envoy Proxy, Etcd, Cassandra and more. Previously, Suhail was Lead Software Engineer at Citymapper helping to make public transit in cities more usable.
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Be sure to follow these voices in 2025 to stay up to date on all things engineering. And check back on the Jellyfish blog frequently for additional thought leadership, best practices, and how-to advice from industry leaders and the Jellyfish team.
