Reading

I share my current reading list and book recommendations on this page. I also put together the top blogs and newsletters I like to follow to stay up to date.

I have separate reading lists for the main topics I write about in the blog. Just access a section from the top menu and navigate to the Learning section.

Currently Reading

• Numbers Don’t Lie by Vaclav Smil
• Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows

You can also find my updated list on Goodreads.

Reading List

Books that are next on my reading list:

• Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager by James Stanier (Director of Engineering at Shopify). A reading recommendation I’ve learned from Gergely Orosz reading list.
• Effective Remote Work by James Stanier (Director of Engineering at Shopify).
• The Engineering Executive’s Primer: Impactful Technical Leadership, by Will Larson (CTO at Carta).

Recommendations

Books

• How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie, is one of my favorite books. A must read for people that want to develop better personal and professional relationships. It is one of the best-selling books of all time, first published almost a century ago, but it is still a relevant reading about influence.
• The Manager’s Path, by Camille Fournier (Managing Director of Engineering at JP Morgan Chase & Co). An excellent overview of the journey from an individual contributor (IC) to senior leadership for software engineering managers.
• An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management, by Will Larson (CTO at Carta). An excellent book for software engineering managers, one full of actionable strategies and clear examples, which significantly helps me in my work.

You can also find my reading recommendations on Goodreads.

Blogs and Newsletters

• The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter and blog, by Gergely Orosz, is a rich and well-curated source of information for software engineering managers and software engineers who want to develop their careers and want to be up to date with the software industry’s best practices and trends.
• Scarlet Ink newsletter, by Dave Anderson, is a great source of management and leadership advice from an ex-Amazon Tech Director, which I find extremely helpful for software engineering managers.
• Irrational exuberance, a newsletter written by Will Larson (CTO at Carta), author of An Elegant Puzzle and Staff Engineer.
• Paul Graham’s Essays, written by Paul Graham, a computer scientist and enterpreneur, founder of Y Combinator.

Books I’ve Read

The following are the last five books I’ve read. Check the full list here.

• The Manager's Path, by Camille Fournier
• An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management, by Will Larson
• Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps, by Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim
• How the World Really Works, by Vaclav Smil
• The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, by Leonard Mlodinow