Melody Olson will help you grow as a technical leader

I spent more than 20 years in engineering, 17 at Google, leading teams in Ads and then Maps, where I grew to lead over 200 engineers. My teams built the capture hardware, large-scale data platforms, and ML capabilities behind Google’s understanding of the physical world.

At that size I saw patterns of teams that did extraordinary work and others that stayed busy without moving the needle. That became the research behind my book, Lead Deep: How Leaders Change What Talented Teams Can Do (Fast Company Press, 2027), built on interviews with 30+ senior leaders at Google, Netflix, NVIDIA, Anthropic, and others.

I also advise engineering and product leaders and speak on influence, making what matters clear, setting teams up to move, and going deep where leaders make a difference.