Your reading list is longer than your week. You want to get better at leading engineers, but you also have one-on-ones, planning, and a laptop full of Slack. Podcasts are the one habit that fits the cracks: the commute, the walk, the dishes.
Not all of them earn that time. Some are an ad with a guest attached. Below are eight that are still publishing in 2026 and actually teach you something. For each one, we say who it is really for, and where it falls short.
How we picked
Three rules. It has to be active, with new episodes this year. It has to be about leading or managing engineers, not just writing code. And it has to give you something you can use on Monday, not just a famous name. We link each show so you can sample one episode before you subscribe.
The eight
1. The Pragmatic Engineer
The Pragmatic Engineer, hosted by Gergely Orosz, is the closest thing the field has to a paper of record. Weekly, long form, and specific. Episodes go deep on how real teams at big and small companies work: hiring, pay, incidents, and org design. Best for: managers and senior engineers who want detail, not slogans. The catch: episodes often run over an hour, so it is a commute show, not a quick hit.
2. The Engineering Leadership Podcast (ELC)
Run by the San Francisco based Engineering Leadership Community, the ELC podcast interviews VPs, directors, and CTOs about the human side of the job: team dynamics, scaling yourself, and hard conversations. Best for: new and mid-level managers who want peer stories. The catch: quality varies by guest, so pick episodes by topic rather than listening front to back.
3. Dev Interrupted
Dev Interrupted covers engineering leadership with a lean toward metrics, delivery, and team health. It is made by a vendor, so keep an ear out for the product angle, but the guest conversations are strong and current. Best for: leaders thinking about how they measure their teams. The catch: the sponsor's worldview shows up, so weigh the framing.
4. Soft Skills Engineering
Soft Skills Engineering answers listener questions about the non-code parts of the job: pay, promotions, bad managers, quitting, saying no. Two hosts, two questions, a lot of laughs. Best for: anyone who wants honest, practical answers to awkward workplace questions. The catch: it is aimed at engineers as much as managers, so not every episode is about leading.
5. Manager Tools
Manager Tools is not engineering specific, and it has been going since 2005, but it is still the most thorough how-to on the basics: one-on-ones, feedback, delegation, coaching. Best for: first-time managers who want a step by step system. The catch: the style is dated and drills a rigid method, so take the parts that fit and skip the rest.
6. Effective Engineering Manager
Effective Engineering Manager is a smaller, focused show on the day to day of running a software team: planning, quality, and delivery. Best for: managers who want short, on-topic episodes. The catch: it publishes less often than the big shows, so treat it as a back catalog to mine, not a weekly habit.
7. Modern CTO
Modern CTO talks to technology leaders about strategy, teams, and the road from engineer to executive. Best for: senior leaders and aspiring CTOs who want a wide view. The catch: it is broad and sometimes light, so it works better for perspective than for tactics.
8. InfoQ Engineering Culture Podcast
The InfoQ Engineering Culture podcast covers team culture, process, and leadership with a practitioner's eye. Best for: leaders who like a calm, thoughtful interview and care about how teams work, not just what they ship. The catch: the cadence is irregular, so subscribe and let episodes come to you.
How to actually use them
Do not try to follow all eight. Pick two. One for depth (The Pragmatic Engineer or ELC) and one for the human stuff (Soft Skills Engineering or Manager Tools). Queue three episodes that match a real problem you have this month, a reorg, a promotion case, a struggling report, and listen with a note open. The goal is one idea you try, not an inbox of unplayed shows.
Be honest about the format too. A podcast is someone else's context. It is great for ideas and useless for answers to your specific question. When a guest describes how they handled a layoff, that is their team, not yours.
What to skip
Two kinds of shows waste your commute. The first is the pure founder interview, where a host asks a famous guest soft questions and you get a life story with no lesson you can use. Nice to hear once, easy to forget. The second is the show that is really a sales funnel, where every episode bends back to a product the host sells. A little of that is fine, since good shows cost money to make. The test is simple: after the episode, can you name one thing you would do differently? If not, skip the next one from that feed. Your time is the scarce thing, not the supply of episodes.
Where the audio ends
Podcasts help you think. They cannot answer for you when you are the one who is off. That gap shows up every time you take a real break: you go quiet, and your team's questions pile up until you are back. The best episode in the world does not tell your teammate what you decided about the launch while you were on a plane.
That is the small problem StandIn handles. You write one short brief at the end of your day, and while you are away it answers your teammates from what you actually wrote, with a source under each answer. When the answer is not in the record, it says so instead of guessing. Listen to the podcasts to get better at the job. Use StandIn so the job does not wait for you to get back.
When you're off, your StandIn is on.
It answers your teammates' questions from work you've already done, in your words, with a source under every answer.