Grady is recognized internationally for his innovative work on software architecture, collaborative development environments, and software engineering. A renowned visionary, he has devoted his life's work to improving the art and science of software development. Grady served as Chief Scientist of Rational Software Corporation since its founding in 1981 and through its acquisition by IBM in 2003. He now is part of the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, serving as Chief Scientist for Software Engineering.

There he continues his work on the Handbook of Software Architecture but also mentors and leads various software engineering projects that are beyond the constraints of immediate product horizons. Grady continues to engage with real customers working on very real problems and is working to build deep relationships with academia and other research organizations around the world. Grady is one of the original authors of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and was also one of the original developers of several of Rational's products. Grady has served as architect and architectural mentor for numerous complex software-intensive systems around the world in just about every domain imaginable.

Grady is the author of six best-selling books, including the UML Users Guide and the seminal Object-Oriented Analysis with Applications. He writes a regular column on architecture for IEEE Software. Grady has published several hundred articles on software engineering, including papers published in the early '80s that originated the term and practice of object-oriented design (OOD), plus papers published in the early 2000's that originated the term and practice of collaborative development environments (CDE).

Grady is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR). He is an IBM Fellow, an ACM Fellow, a World Technology Network Fellow, a Software Development Forum Visionary, a recipient of Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming award as well as three Jolt Awards, and generally just a really nice and gentle fellow.

Grady was a founding board member of the Agile Alliance, the Hillside Group, and the Worldwide Institute of Software Architects, and now also serves on the advisory board of the International Association of Software Architecture. Additionally, Grady serves on the board of Iliff School of Theology. He is also a member of the IEEE Software editorial board. Grady helped establish work at the Computer History Museum for the preservation of classic software and therein has conducted several oral histories for luminaries such as John Backus and Fred Brooks.

Grady received his bachelor of science from the United States Air Force Academy in 1977 and his master of science in electrical engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1979.