Hi all,

Starting September 1, Austin Clements will be taking over as the tech lead of Go: both the Go team at Google and the overall Go project. Austin is currently the tech lead for what we sometimes call the “Go core”, which encompasses compiler toolchain, runtime, and releases. Cherry Mui will be stepping up to lead those areas.

I am not leaving the Go project, but I think the time is right for a change.

It’s important to remember that tech lead—like any position of leadership—is a service role, not an honorary title. I have been leading the Go project for over 12 years, serving all of you, and trying to create the right conditions for all of you to do your best work. Large projects like Go absolutely benefit from stable leadership, but they can also benefit from leadership changes. New leaders bring new strengths and fresh perspectives. For Go, I think 12+ years of one leader is enough stability; it’s time for someone new to serve in this role. In particular, I don’t believe that the “BDFL” (benevolent dictator for life) model is healthy for a person or a project. It doesn’t create space for new leaders. It’s a single point of failure. It doesn’t give the project room to grow. I think Python benefited greatly from Guido stepping down in 2018 and letting other people lead, and I’ve had in the back of my mind for many years that we should have a Go leadership change eventually.

If you haven’t worked on the compiler toolchain or runtime, you may not know Austin or Cherry well. Austin has been working on Go at Google since 2014, Cherry since 2016. Their judgment is superb and their knowledge of Go and the systems it runs on both broad and deep. When I have general design questions or need to better understand details of the compiler, linker, or runtime, I turn to them. I’m very excited that we have such great new leaders available for this change. I have full confidence in Austin and Cherry stepping up, as well as in Roland Shoemaker continuing to lead Go security and Rob Findley and Hana Kim continuing to lead Go tools and IDE support.

I am going to consciously step back from decision making and create space for Austin and the others to step forward, but I am not disappearing. I will still be available to talk about Go designs, review CLs, answer obscure history questions, and generally help and support you all in whatever way I can. I will still file issues and send CLs from time to time, I have been working on a few potential new standard libraries, I will still advocate for Go across the industry, and I will be speaking about Go at GoLab in Italy in November.

I will be shifting my focus to work more on Gaby and Oscar, trying to make useful contributions in the Go issue tracker to help all of you work more productively. I am hopeful that work on Oscar will uncover ways to help open source maintainers that will be adopted by other projects, just like some of Go’s best ideas have been adopted by other projects. At the highest level, my goals for Oscar are to build something useful, learn something new, and chart a path for other projects. These are the same broad goals I’ve always had for our work on Go, so in that sense Oscar feels like a natural continuation.

I am incredibly proud of the work we have all accomplished together, and I am confident in the leaders both on the Go team at Google and in the Go community. You are all doing remarkable work, and I know you will continue to do that.

The exact details of this transition are yet to be decided. Part of the point of this mail is to ensure that we can discuss those details publicly. Austin and I are both committed to making the change seem like a non-event except for the Go project becoming stronger and better. Again, I’m not leaving Go and will still be around and participating as an individual contributor.

Please always feel free to continue to reach out whenever you need anything. And my thanks and congratulations to Austin and Cherry for stepping into their new roles.

Best,
Russ