Voice to Text for Engineering Managers
Your calendar is stacked with 1:1s, your Slack is overflowing, and that performance review is due tomorrow. Blurt lets you capture thoughts the moment they happen. Hold a button, say what you need, release. Text appears wherever your cursor is — in Notion, Slack, email, anywhere. No typing through back-to-back meetings. No losing insights because you couldn't write fast enough. Just talk and document.
The Typing Problem
1:1 notes that disappear into the void
You just had a great conversation with a direct report about their career goals. They shared something important about feeling stuck. But your next meeting starts in 2 minutes. By the time you have a moment to write it down, the details have evaporated. You're left with vague bullet points that don't capture what actually mattered.
Performance reviews that take entire weekends
Review season hits and suddenly you're writing 8 detailed assessments. You know exactly what you want to say about each person — you could talk through it in 10 minutes per report — but typing it takes an hour each. Your weekend disappears into a Google Doc, pecking away at feedback you could speak effortlessly.
Slack threads demanding immediate response
You're in a skip-level when your phone buzzes. Production incident. Engineers are waiting for your input in Slack. You need to respond now but you're in a conversation you can't cut short. The thread keeps growing. By the time you're free, you're playing catch-up on a crisis that needed you 20 minutes ago.
Status updates that eat into actual work
Monday morning: write the weekly update. Wednesday: prep for leadership sync. Friday: send team highlights to your skip. You spend more time documenting what your team did than actually helping them do it. The overhead of management communication is crushing the time you have for actual management.
Context from hallway conversations that never gets captured
You run into a tech lead after a meeting and they mention a concern about the project timeline. Important information. You make a mental note to document it. Three hours later, you remember you were supposed to write something down but can't recall what. The context is gone. Decisions get made without it.
How It Works
Blurt works in every app engineering managers live in — Slack, Notion, Gmail, Google Docs, Lattice, anywhere you type.
Hold your hotkey
Press your chosen shortcut. A small indicator shows Blurt is listening.
Talk naturally
Say your 1:1 notes, feedback, or status update. Blurt handles punctuation.
Release and done
Text appears at your cursor. No copying, no pasting, no extra steps.
Real Scenarios
Capturing 1:1 notes between meetings
Your direct report just walked out after sharing concerns about burnout. Your next meeting starts in 90 seconds. Open your 1:1 doc, hold the button, and speak: 'Sarah mentioned feeling overwhelmed by the migration project. Wants to hand off the documentation piece. Discuss with Tom about reassigning. Follow up next week on workload.' Done in 15 seconds. Context preserved. Next meeting time.
Drafting performance review sections
You're staring at the 'Areas for Growth' section. You know exactly what to say — you've had these conversations for months. Hold the button and talk through it: 'Alex has made strong progress on technical leadership but still struggles with delegating implementation details. Recommend focusing on providing direction rather than solutions in code reviews.' One paragraph done in 20 seconds instead of 5 minutes of typing.
Responding to Slack during back-to-back meetings
You're in a planning session but the release thread needs your approval. Open Slack, hold the button, say 'Approved for release. Make sure we have the rollback plan documented before deploy. Ping me if you hit any blockers.' Send. Back to your meeting. Your team isn't blocked. Your focus isn't destroyed.
Writing weekly status updates
Friday afternoon, status update due. Instead of reconstructing the week from memory and Jira, hold the button and talk through highlights: 'Team shipped the authentication refactor on Tuesday. Unblocked the mobile team by Wednesday. One open risk: database migration timeline slipping. Need decision from infra by next Thursday.' Email draft done in 45 seconds.
Capturing feedback in the moment
You just observed a team member handle a difficult stakeholder conversation brilliantly. Before you forget the specifics, open their 1:1 doc and speak: 'Great example of stakeholder management in the design review today. Acknowledged concerns, redirected to data, kept discussion productive. Use this as example in next review cycle.' Specific feedback captured while it's fresh.
Async communication with leadership
Your VP asked for context on the project delay. You could type for 10 minutes or just explain it like you would in person. Hold button: 'The delay is due to unexpected complexity in the legacy integration. We underestimated the data migration by about two weeks. Team is heads down, expect delivery by the 15th. Happy to discuss trade-offs if we need to pull scope.' Clear, complete, done.
Documenting decisions after meetings
The architecture review just ended. Three decisions were made that need to be recorded before context fades. Open the decision log, hold button, speak each one: 'Decision: Moving to event-driven architecture for notifications. Rationale: Reduces coupling with core service. Owner: Platform team. Review date: Q2.' Meeting outcomes captured before your next call starts.
Why engineering managers choose Blurt over built-in dictation
| Blurt | macOS Dictation | |
|---|---|---|
| Activation | Single hotkey, instant start | Click microphone or double-tap key |
| Speed | Text appears in under 500ms | 2-3 second delay before transcription |
| During calls | Works while muted on Zoom | Often conflicts with call audio |
| Consistency | Same experience every time | Fails silently, misses words randomly |
| Technical terms | Handles engineering vocabulary well | Mangles technical jargon frequently |
Frequently Asked Questions
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