Brendan Gregg Joins Intel as Fellow
Brendan Gregg, known for his performance analysis tools and work at Netflix, has joined Intel as a fellow. He will be based in Australia and focus on cloud computing performance, working across the full software-to-silicon stack.
Gregg describes his goal as making computer performance analysis a science, where every layer of an application—from libraries up through kernels, hypervisors, firmware, and hardware—can be fully observed and understood. He notes that as systems grow more complex, finding root causes of performance problems has become increasingly difficult, and he wants to build tooling that can provide complete answers for any workload, operating system, or hardware type.
Why Intel
Gregg says he initially explored building this capability at a major cloud provider. After extensive discussions with Intel CTO Greg Lavender and other leaders, however, he saw a larger opportunity: working on performance and debugging technologies across all xPUs—CPUs, GPUs, IPUs, and more—with an impact extending across the industry. He calls it the most challenging option he considered, which is part of the appeal. "Why climb the highest mountain?" he asks.
Intel is in the middle of a significant transition. New CEO Pat Gelsinger has recommitted to open source, and products like the Sapphire Rapids processor are launching. Intel is also building new fabs on US soil. Gregg cites increased competition as a positive force that will drive innovation.
IC to Manager
Gregg has long been an individual contributor, with no direct reports, a detail that surprised interviewers during his job search. At Intel, he will have the opportunity to hire and mentor a team of performance and debugging engineers while staying hands-on. He emphasizes teaching as a core part of what drives him, pointing to his books, training materials, and blog posts.
His eBPF and other open source work will continue. Intel has been a top contributor to the Linux kernel and supports many other projects; eBPF, which originated in Linux, is also in development for Windows, and Gregg notes it plays a central role in his performance-analysis approach.
Cloud Focus
Gregg will work on the Intel DevCloud, run by Markus Flierl, Corporate VP and General Manager of Intel Developer Cloud Platforms. Gregg knows Flierl from their days at Sun Microsystems. Because of the close relationship between Intel and Netflix, Gregg says he will likely continue contributing to Netflix cloud performance as well as helping other clouds.
Gregg had regular meetings with Intel engineers while at Netflix—so frequent, he jokes, that they had started calling him an employee already. He praises the company's depth, professionalism, and respectfulness, especially contrasted with a different hardware vendor that became "bullying and misleading" after internal evaluations went poorly. "You never know a company until you see them on their worst day," he writes, adding that Intel has remained professional through good times and bad.
The title of his blog post is indeed his new email address; he previously used the same pattern at [email protected].
