About Michael Greenspan

Seven years as a software engineer. Nine years as an engineering manager. Building a career I was proud of on paper — while quietly wondering why it didn't feel the way I expected it to.

It wasn't burnout. It wasn't failure. It was something harder to name — a growing gap between what I had achieved and what I actually felt.

Today I work privately with a small number of technical leaders — engineering managers, staff and principal engineers, and CTOs — carrying more than anyone can see. The work is reflective rather than tactical: a slower kind of conversation than the ones already crowding their calendar, about the pressure they can't talk through with anyone, the decisions they keep circling, and the questions the next promotion won't answer.

I publish two newsletters. The Complete Engineer is for technical leaders sitting with the questions that the next promotion won't answer. The ADHD Engineer is a separate weekly newsletter for software engineers with ADHD — engineers tired of being at war with themselves at work.

I'm based in Toronto.