A personally curated roadmap for career growth as a software engineer.
I originally created this list as a personal reference to answer questions about career growth and improving technical skills.
I’ve read all these books and articles, and strongly recommend them for anyone looking to grow their career as a software engineer.
These lists are ordered with the highest-impact resources first.
Read and master the Big Three:
Read 📘 Release It! to get ~3 years’ worth of real-world experience in one book. The book explains best practices for building production-ready software. Even if you’ve been working for a few years, this book goes through the entire SDLC to build software that survives and thrives in the world, not just on paper. (Bonus read: Design It! )
Listen to 🎙️ Lenny’s Podcast . Lenny Rachitsky interviews incredible PMs with different perspectives. I’ve gotten huge value from this as I work with PMs to build customer-facing products.
Start with 📘 Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track . I reference this book all the time with engineers looking to go the IC route, and still refer to it for my own career growth.
If you haven’t read (and mastered) the Big Three from the Senior section, do it now.
Resources specific to engineering managers.
You don’t have to be a manager. But if you think it’s the path for you, there are two books you must read.
The first is 📘 Build . This isn’t normally on the list for managers to read, but I think it’s necessary. It goes deep into building products as a technical leader, with stories from the author’s perspective as an engineer-turned-manager early in their career.
The other required reading is 📘 The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier .
Regardless of your level, you’ll need to solve technical problems. These are the best resources I’ve used when working on projects over the past ten years.
When you’re working with microservices:
“But Jacob, why not _________?”
Chances are that yes, I read it, and no, I didn’t find it super useful. If it was useful, it would be on the list.