Mike McQuaid

Podcasts

Podcast appearances and episodes from all my own podcasts (Minimum Viable Management and Balancing Dads).

Listen below, download or listen on:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Podcast RSS Feed

• How Homebrew Became Mac's Package Manager with Mike McQuaid

  27 January 2026

  Screaming in the Cloud

  Mike McQuaid explains how Homebrew grew from a side project into macOS’s de facto package manager and how the project is sustained today.

• Getting Shit Done in Institutions

  24 January 2026

  Minimum Viable Management

  David Yee, VP of Engineering at The New York Times and head of its new AI platforms and products mission, joins Mike McQuaid and Neha Batra for a candid, behind-the-scenes conversation about why institutions are built to resist change and what to do about it. They dig into hidden norms, choosing the right battles, translating “how things really work” and creating stability for teams while you deliberately destabilize the system just enough to move it forward.

• The Most Important Skills Going Forward with CTO + Homebrew Maintainer Mike McQuaid

  16 January 2026

  freeCodeCamp Podcast

  Mike McQuaid joins Quincy Larson to discuss career lessons and the software engineering skills worth prioritizing next.

• Performance Reviews, Done Right

  09 January 2026

  Minimum Viable Management

  Performance reviews have a reputation for being stressful, confusing and often disconnected from reality. Too often they surface feedback that should have been shared months earlier or reduce a year of work into a single rating. In this episode, Mike and Neha unpack why reviews fail and how managers can turn them into a useful summary instead of a shock.

  They explore what companies expect from performance reviews, what managers struggle with and what employees actually want to hear. The conversation covers documenting early signals, balancing positive and critical feedback, avoiding ruinous empathy and ensuring no one walks into a review surprised by the outcome. They also discuss practical ways to give feedback throughout the life of a project, align on growth goals and handle mismatches between perception and reality. A grounded, experience-based discussion for anyone responsible for giving or receiving feedback.

• Politics at Work Without Losing Your Soul

  29 December 2025

  Minimum Viable Management

  In this episode, Mike and Neha are joined by Denise, an engineering leader and former colleague from GitHub and Pivotal, to unpack the reality of workplace politics and why ignoring them is not a neutral choice. Drawing on Denise’s LeadDev talk and hard-earned lessons from management and senior IC roles, the conversation explores political capital, information asymmetry, allyship and the idea of “table flips” as a finite currency.

  Together they discuss when to spend influence, when to hold it back and how privilege shapes who gets heard. From advocating for promotions to using power responsibly on the way out of an organisation, this is a practical and candid look at how to navigate work under capitalism without burning out or selling yourself short.

• Beyond Engineering: Healthy Tension

  19 December 2025

  Minimum Viable Management

  Product, design and engineering rarely agree and that’s a good thing. In this episode, Mike McQuaid and Neha Batra break down what healthy tension actually looks like, why alignment is overrated and how leaders can turn disagreement into better outcomes.

• When Things Go Wrong: How Leaders Rebuild Trust

  14 November 2025

  Minimum Viable Management

  Mike and Neha explore how leaders can recognise when things are going wrong, why admitting mistakes builds trust, how to spot low psychological safety, and the value of written plans, accountability and steady course correction when guiding teams through tough moments.

• Creating and Keeping Momentum

  31 October 2025

  Minimum Viable Management

  Mike McQuaid and Neha Batra break down how leaders spark momentum and keep it steady. They start with clarity of mission, ruthless scope cuts, and visible wins in weeks not years. They cover simple not easy systems that reduce drag, like milestone slices, anti-goals, handoffs that follow the sun, and temporary process as guardrails you later remove. They show why constraints breed creativity, how to automate recurring pain, and why teams should target low volatility over peak velocity. They close with saying no, letting the right fires burn, and building a candid culture through trust and social capital.

• Psychological Safety vs. Telling the Truth

  23 October 2025

  Minimum Viable Management

  How can teams feel safe to speak up while still hearing hard truths? In this episode of Minimum Viable Management, Mike McQuaid and Neha Batra explore what it really means to balance psychological safety with direct, honest communication. They discuss the practical work of rebuilding trust in teams, the role of consistency and humility in leadership, and how to make openness a habit, even when conversations are uncomfortable.

  They also touch on remote work, written communication, and when individual contributors should share their opinions in decision-making. A candid look at how safety and honesty can, and must, coexist for teams to thrive.

• Homebrew and macOS Package Management with Mike McQuaid

  21 October 2025

  Software Engineering Daily

  Mike McQuaid discusses Homebrew’s evolution, open source maintenance on macOS, and practical package management tradeoffs.

• Mike McQuaid: If You Don't Like It, Quit

  17 October 2025

  Breaking Change - Hotfix podcast

  Also available in swear-free/bleeped version on The Changelog and Friends podcast There will be bleeps.

• Leadership Is a Series of Decisions (and Compromises)

  14 October 2025

  Minimum Viable Management

  In this episode of Minimum Viable Management, Mike McQuaid and Neha Batra dive deep into the messy art of decision-making. When should you seek input and build consensus and when should you just make the call? They swap stories about frameworks for faster, clearer decisions, how to handle reversibility (“one-way vs two-way doors”), and how to communicate so people understand not just what you decided, but why.

  They also discuss how leaders can empower others to show leadership at any level, the real cost of over-meeting, and what it means to take ownership when things go wrong.

• Building Trust and Having Better Fights

  09 October 2025

  Minimum Viable Management

  In the first episode of Minimum Viable Management, Mike McQuaid and Neha Batra reunite to talk about what “minimum viable management” really means: how to lead effectively without drowning in meetings or bureaucracy. They cover one-on-ones that actually work, giving and receiving feedback, establishing connections, servant leadership without martyrdom, and what good arguments look like between managers, engineers, and product.

• Mike McQuaid on the Greatest Lessons He’s Learned in Over 16 Years at Homebrew

  07 October 2025

  GitHub Podcast

  Homebrew’s project lead Mike McQuaid joins Abby and Andrea to unpack what it really takes to sustain one of the most-used developer tools on macOS and Linux.

• Distributing Your CLI with Homebrew: Tips from Mike McQuaid

  09 September 2025

  Ruby Rogues

  In this episode of Ruby Rogues, I sit down with Mike McQuaid, lead maintainer of Homebrew, to talk all about building and distributing CLIs. We dig into the practical steps for turning small scripts into reliable command-line tools, why Ruby is a great starting point, and when you might want to reach for Go or Rust instead.

• Ep. #14, The Workbrew Story with Mike McQuaid and John Britton

  22 May 2025

  Open Source Ready Podcast

  In episode 14 of Open Source Ready, special guests Mike McQuaid and John Britton join Brian and John to share the story of Workbrew.

• Episode 397: Software Bill of Materials with Workbrew

  29 January 2025

  Mac Admins Podcast

  The team at Workbrew has been focused on getting into full production, and they’ve gotten a huge head of steam going in 2024. They’re with us today to talk about SBOMs.

• The Homebrew maintainers who built a startup - Mike McQuaid and John Britton from Workbrew

  31 October 2024

  Scaling DevTools

  Mike McQuaid and John Britton are cofounders of Workbrew - a tool that gives you the missing features for enterprises running Homebrew.

• Workbrew, turning Homebrew into a business with Mike McQuaid

  17 October 2024

  The Tech Lounge Podcast

  I speak with Mike McQuaid, long-term maintainer of Homebrew, the macOS package manager, about Workbrew, a new commercial version of Homebrew that brings extra security and governance features to Homebrew.

• Homebrew, I'm more of a Whopper guy

  14 August 2024

  FLOSS Weekly

  This week Jonathan Bennett and David Ruggles chat with John Britton and Mike McQuaid about Homebrew! That’s the missing package manager for macOS; and Workbrew, the commercial offering built …

• Riding the Homebrew Wave

  28 May 2024

  Open Source Startup Podcast

  John Britton & Mike McQuaid are Co-Founders of Workbrew, the company that provides additional features and support for companies using Homebrew. Homebrew’s main project, brew, is a wildly popular open source project with 40K GitHub stars and provides the missing package manager for macOS (or Linux). In this episode, we dig into John & Mike’s history with Homebrew and their time together at GitHub, how Homebrew has kept projects simple over time and avoided feature creep, how Homebrew has managed to get a lot of value from contributors, how their ICP has shifted from mac admins to dev and security teams & more!

• What Open Source Maintainers Should Know About Mental Health

  28 May 2024

  debug:mind

  In this special episode of “debug:mind”, I chat with Mike McQuaid, a leading figure in the open-source community and co-founder of Workbrew.

• Episode 356: Workbrew

  18 March 2024

  Mac Admins Podcast

  The team from Workbrew joins us this week to discuss the challenges MacAdmins face with Homebrew at their companies.

• Homebrew Unleashed: Diving into the Fast and Efficient Packaging Process

  13 March 2024

  Ruby Rogues

  Mike McQuaid is the CTO and cofounder at Workbrew. They dive into the world of Homebrew, an open-source package manager for macOS and Linux. They explore the history and development of Homebrew, from its origins in the Ruby community to its evolution into a widely-used tool for installing and managing software.

• Brewing up something for work

  20 February 2024

  Changelog and Friends

  Homebrew project leader Mike McQuaid joins us to weigh in on Apple’s big Vision Pro announcement. We also hit on our favorite (and least favorite) non-AR things from the WWDC 2023 keynote.

• Reactions to Apple’s new vision

  09 June 2023

  Changelog and Friends

  Homebrew project leader Mike McQuaid joins us to weigh in on Apple’s big Vision Pro announcement. We also hit on our favorite (and least favorite) non-AR things from the WWDC 2023 keynote.

• Homebrew with Mike McQuaid

  27 March 2023

  The Developers' Bakery

  Into the most popular package manager for macOS with Homebrew and Mike McQuaid.

• Mike McQuaid of Homebrew on Sustainably Working on OSS Projects

  15 April 2022

  SustainOSS

  Mike McQuaid shares on the history of Homebrew, his involvement in open source, boundary setting, and what software sustainability means for him.

• Mike McQuaid (GitHub)

  06 April 2021

  StaffEng Podcast

  Today we have a great guest to talk about his transition to, and current role as, a staff engineer: Mike McQuaid from GitHub!

• Paul and Mike - Sibling Viralry

  22 July 2020

  Balancing Dads

  Paul and Mike talk coronavirus, working through it, racism and sibling fights.

  Vito

  Being an Antiracist by Kim Crayton

  Mike on Twitter

  Paul on Twitter

• Derek Sivers - OxFord Focus

  08 April 2020

  Balancing Dads

  Paul and Mike talk to Derek Sivers (founder of CD Baby and HostBaby) about outside play, computer games, focus, happiness, John Lennon's parenting and singing.

  Derek's website

  Dragonbox Math Apps

  Steven Universe on Wikipedia

  Mike on Twitter

  Paul on Twitter

• Paul and Mike talk Coronavirus

  18 March 2020

  Balancing Dads

  A between-season, random episode: Paul and Mike talk Coronavirus, being stuck at home and how it could change the way we work.

  • Coronavirus updates - BBC News
  • How to Work From Home With Kids - Wirecutter
  • Best Educational Apps and Learning Games for Kids - Wirecutter
  • Mike on Twitter
  • Paul on Twitter

• Tom Preston-Werner - Medisins of the Father

  19 February 2020

  Balancing Dads

  Paul and Mike talk to Tom Preston-Werner (cofounder of Chatterbug and GitHub) about giving your kids medicine, parental leave, screen time, flexible working and avoiding meltdowns.

  This is the last episode of Season 1; we're going to have a wee break, get some feedback, find some more guests and then we'll be back with Season 2. See you soon!

  Tom on Twitter

  Tom's website

  Mike on Twitter

  Paul on Twitter

• Paul and Mike - Axel Rosmeo and Juliat

  30 January 2020

  Balancing Dads

  No guest this time (we will have one next time)!

  Paul and Mike talk Dinotrux, dogs singing pirate metal, brushing teeth, meeting other parents and Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's latest book (and Axel's website).

  • Dinotrux on Wikipedia

  • No Grave But The Sea (pirate metal with "dogs singing") on Wikipedia

  • The Smeds and the Smoos on Amazon

  • Cars Electric Toothbrush

  • Axel Scheffler's website

  • Mike on Twitter

  • Paul on Twitter

• Luke Hefson - Travel Advice from a Prodad Manager

  08 January 2020

  Balancing Dads

  This time Mike and Paul get advice from with Luke Hefson: Shoreham-based product manager at GitHub about traveling with kids and everyone talks about their New Year's Eves.

  • Luke on Twitter

  • Mike on Twitter

  • Paul on Twitter

• Alex Lang and Thilo Utke - Paternity Leave(ing Work at 5:30)

  06 December 2019

  Balancing Dads

  This time Mike and Paul are speaking with Alex Lang and Thilo Utke: Berlin-based founders of Cobot about paternity leave, baby groups, having kids while running a startup, memories and language.

  • Author of "Cribsheet", Emily Oster (Wikipedia)
  • Cobot on Twitter
  • Cobot's homepage
  • Mike on Twitter
  • Paul on Twitter

• Paul and Mike - Sick Child(r|m)en

  28 November 2019

  Balancing Dads

  No guest this time (we expect one next time)! Mike and Paul talk sick kids, balancing them with work, screen time, Scottish, English and Irish healthcare for kids and anticipate schools.

  • Mike on Twitter
  • Paul on Twitter

• Paul and Mike - Halloween(ers)

  10 November 2019

  Balancing Dads

  No guest this time! Mike and Paul talk Halloween, Christmas, lying to your children, advertising, toys, teenagers and threenagers.

  • Mike on Twitter
  • Paul on Twitter

• Jame McCrae - Infectious Dadsease Dadctor

  26 October 2019

  Balancing Dads

  This time Mike and Paul are speaking with Jame McCrae: Edinburgh-based infectious disease doctor, father of one and Mike's next-door neighbour about doctors dating doctors, children sleeping, their toys and Julia Donaldson's (great) children's books.

  • Sophie the Giraffe (Wikipedia)
  • Julia Donaldson's works (Wikipedia)
  • Jame has "no internet presence and no plans to get one"
  • Mike on Twitter
  • Paul on Twitter

  Sorry about the sound quality of this one; we're still trying to find the best way to record multiple guests.

• Mike McQuaid - GitHusband Engineer

  17 October 2019

  Balancing Dads

  This time we're speaking with ... me? Edinburgh-based Mike McQuaid, software engineer and father of two, is interviewed by his new co-host (from Episode 1): Paul Campbell.

  • Mike on Twitter

  • Paul on Twitter

• Lee Dohm - Community Dadager

  17 October 2019

  Balancing Dads

  This episode we're speaking to Kirkland, Washington-based Lee Dohm: a community manager in the software industry and single dad.

  • Lee on Twitter
  • Lee on GitHub
  • Mike on Twitter

• Paul Campbell - CEdaddyO and Cofoundad

  17 October 2019

  Balancing Dads

  This time we're speaking with Dublin-based Paul Campbell a CEO, founder, conference organiser and father of two.

  • Paul on Twitter
  • Úll on Twitter (mentioned conference)
  • Tito's homepage (Paul's company)
  • Mike on Twitter

• Homebrew! Part Deux

  06 March 2019

  The Changelog

  We’re talking with Mike McQuaid about Homebew 2.0.0, supporting Linux and Windows 10, the backstory and details surrounding the security issue they had in 2018, their new governance model, Mike’s new role, the core team meeting in-person at FOSDEM this year, and what’s coming next for Homebrew.

• Homebrew with Mike McQuaid

  16 August 2017

  The Manifest

  Wherein we chat with Mike McQuaid, the lead maintainer of Homebrew. We discuss how he got started contributing to Homebrew, its differences from Macports, using GitHub as a database, patching upstream, and more.

• The Future of Open Source at OSCON 2017

  28 July 2017

  The Changelog

  This is an anthology episode from OSCON 2017 featuring awesome conversations with Kelsey Hightower (OSCON Co-Chair and Developer Advocate at Google Cloud Platform), Safia Abdalla (Open Source Developer and Creator of Zarf), and Mike McQuaid and Nadia Eghbal (GitHub Open Source Programs).

• Homebrew and Package Management

  07 October 2016

  The Changelog

  Mike McQuaid joined us to catch us up on the latest in Homebrew and the recent 1.0.0 release. We talked about no more /usr/local — Homebrew moves to /usr/local/Homebrew to keep /usr/local cleaner, auto-updates, the growth of the Homebrew community and how it has grown to almost 6000 unique contributors, and more.

• But What About The Stars?

  04 October 2016

  Ruby on Rails Podcast

  In this episode, Kyle is joined by Mike McQuaid, a maintainer on Homebrew, to talk about open source, how Homebrew works, and the hardest part of running a huge package manager for Macs. Let’s give this new format a try!