Three decades building technology — and the leaders behind it.
I’m Andrew Swerdlow, a technology pioneer based in San Francisco. I’ve spent my career leading cutting-edge software across many disciplines, and I write and teach about the part most engineers are never trained for: leadership.
Over the years I’ve held leadership positions at Google, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, where I shipped products used by billions of people. I’ve directly managed more than one hundred engineers, and led organizations through which nearly a thousand engineers have grown. Today I work at the intersection of AI and large-scale infrastructure.
I believe the next decade makes leadership a skill for everyone. As AI turns each of us into the lead of our own network of agents — delegating, reviewing, setting direction — the craft I’ve practiced for decades stops being a manager’s job and becomes a builder’s edge.
I’ve been awarded more than thirty-five patents across language detection, privacy, identity, internationalization, and user experience. But the work I’m proudest of isn’t in a patent filing — it’s in the careers of the people I’ve helped grow.
I’m known as a leader with a knack for caring deeply about team members while unlocking what a team is truly capable of. That conviction — that great leadership is how good people do their best work — is what led me to write Tech Leadership, and to mentor the next generation of leaders, advise founders, and co-found The Laundry, a San Francisco experiences incubator.
- Leadership roles at Google, Instagram, Facebook & YouTube
- 35+ patents awarded
- Directly managed 100+ engineers
- ~1,000 engineers across the organizations I’ve led
- Products used by billions of people
- Author, Tech Leadership
- Co-founder, The Laundry
- Based in San Francisco, California
- BSc, University of Victoria
- MSc, University of Victoria
- MSc in Engineering Management, Drexel University
- SAPM Certification, Stanford University
People first. Always.
The best technology is built by teams who feel cared for and challenged in equal measure. My job — whether on a stage, in a coaching session, or in a book — is to give leaders the frameworks and the emotional grounding to make lasting change.
I still hold a demanding full-time role because staying in the arena keeps my advice honest. What I share isn’t theory; it’s what works, right now, at scale.