Publications
Articles, whitepapers, and written work on software architecture, DevOps, and engineering culture.
Article — September 2023 · Xebia
Balancing In-House Strengths with Expert Support: A Strategic Approach to Sourcing
Discusses strategic sourcing, operating models and how organizations can balance internal capabilities with external expertise while building sustainable technology organizations.
Article — March 2023 · Xebia
Together We Build an Engineering Culture
Foundational article co-authored with Marcel de Vries introducing the Engineering Culture model, explaining why every organization is becoming an IT company and how culture, technology and leadership must evolve together.
Article — November 2022 · Xebia
The SPACE Framework: Our View on Satisfaction and Well-Being
Explores developer productivity through the SPACE framework and challenges traditional productivity metrics by emphasizing satisfaction, well-being and flow as key indicators of a healthy engineering organization.
Article — May 2022 · Consultancy.nl
8 Tips voor het Implementeren van Nieuwe Technologie
Practical lessons on technology adoption, organizational change and transformation leadership — drawing from hands-on experience leading large-scale cloud and DevOps transformation programs.
Article — January 2022 · BlogIT.nl
Innovatie & Cultuur
Perspectives on innovation, culture and creating high-performing organizations in a world where technology is increasingly central to business survival.
Whitepaper — June 2023 · Xebia
6 Misconceptions About Engineering Culture
Addresses the most common misconceptions around engineering culture and explains why culture is critical for innovation, competitive advantage and attracting top talent. Contributor.
Whitepaper — January 2023 · Xebia
Building Engineering Cultures
A practical framework for creating high-performing engineering organizations through eight pillars covering technology, leadership, operating models, knowledge sharing, developer experience and organizational transformation. Lead author.
LEAD Podcast
A show by René van Osnabrugge and Geert van der Cruijsen on building great engineering cultures.
All episodes on YouTube →
#32 - Endings are just new beginnings (but also endings)
René and Geert reflect on the journey of the LEAD Podcast, what they've learned, and why every ending is also the sta...
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#31 - Core vs. Context: Focus on What Really Matters
A conversation about strategic focus — how engineering leaders can distinguish the work that truly differentiates fro...
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#30 - Future of Software Development in the AI Era
What does AI mean for the software developer's role, the engineering team, and the delivery pipeline? René and Geert ...
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#29 - Dark Clouds or Bright Horizons for the Dutch government?
A candid discussion about digital transformation in the Dutch public sector — the challenges, the progress, and what ...
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#28 - Future of IT Leadership with Marcel de Vries from Xebia
Marcel de Vries joins René and Geert to discuss what IT leadership will require in the next decade — and how the role...
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#27 - Looking back at 1 year of LEAD Podcast and 2025 predictions
One year of LEAD Podcast: what we learned, what surprised us, and what we think 2025 holds for engineering culture an...
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#26 - A look under the hood of Toyota's Connected Platform Engineering Journey
How one of the world's largest manufacturers is building a connected platform engineering capability — the culture, t...
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#25 - Reviewing the State of DevOps
An annual tradition: reviewing the State of DevOps report and discussing what the data means for engineering leaders ...
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#24 - Kubernetes: From running containers to a Cloud Native OS (with Chris van Sluijsveld)
Chris van Sluijsveld joins to discuss the evolution of Kubernetes from container orchestrator to full cloud native op...
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#23 - Crafting a culture that makes vision happen
Strategy is easy. Execution requires culture. How do engineering leaders build the culture that actually converts vis...
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#21 - The difference between speaking and being understood
Communication in engineering organisations: why technical leaders consistently struggle to translate their thinking i...
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#22 - Learn today and lead tomorrow with a learning organization
Building a learning organisation is not a training programme. René and Geert discuss what it really takes to build a ...
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#19 - The Uniform Tech Stack Fallacy: Embracing Diversity for Success
The argument for standardising on a single tech stack sounds compelling. But does uniformity actually deliver the ben...
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#20 - Rebuild or Refactor? - That is the question!
One of the most consequential decisions in software: do you rebuild from scratch or refactor incrementally? René and ...
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#17 - Quantum Leap with Hanna Engel
Hanna Engel joins to discuss quantum computing: what it actually is, when it becomes relevant for enterprise engineer...
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#18 - High Performing Engineering Teams
What separates engineering teams that consistently outperform from those that struggle? René and Geert break down the...
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#15 - The role of UX in Software Development with Dean Schuster
Dean Schuster joins to discuss why user experience is not a handoff at the end of the development process — and how e...
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#16 - Architecture without architects
What happens when you distribute architectural responsibility to the teams that actually build and run the systems? T...
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#13 - The importance of an engineering culture with Jennifer Wadella
Jennifer Wadella on why engineering culture is not a soft topic, what organisations get wrong about it, and what lead...
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#14 - Measuring what matters
Metrics are only useful if you're measuring the right things. A conversation about engineering metrics, vanity measur...
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#11 - Debugging the Human Factor with Arthur Doler
Arthur Doler on the human factors in software engineering — the psychological and social dynamics that determine whet...
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#12 - Decisions, Decisions: The Art of Thinking Critically with Laïla Bougriâ
Laïla Bougriâ on critical thinking, decision-making under uncertainty, and how engineering leaders can improve the qu...
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#09 - FinOps: Controlling the price of progress
Cloud costs out of control are a symptom of something deeper. A conversation about FinOps as a cultural and organisat...
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#10 - A message about choosing the right architecture from Adam Ralph
Adam Ralph on architectural decision-making: how to choose the right architecture for your context, and why the wrong...
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#07 - Growing a DevOps Mindset
DevOps is not a toolchain. It is a way of thinking about the relationship between building and running software. A co...
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#08 - Enabling a new generation of developers @ GitHub (with April Edwards)
April Edwards from GitHub on developer productivity, the tools and practices that genuinely help engineering teams sh...
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#04 - Stacking success with Developer Experience @ LEGO
How LEGO built a developer experience programme that made their engineering teams measurably more productive — and wh...
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#05 - Ops we did it again: A discussion about SRE
Site Reliability Engineering: what it actually means, how it differs from DevOps, and whether it is the right model f...
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#06 - (Em)Powering Startup Engineering Culture @ Atlas
How do you build an engineering culture from scratch in a high-growth startup? A conversation with the team at Atlas ...
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#03 - Is DevOps dead or evolving with Platform Engineering?
Platform Engineering is the new DevOps — or is it? René and Geert debate whether Platform Engineering is a meaningful...
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