01
An Elegant PuzzleWill Larson
The single best framing of how engineering organisations actually behave under load. Larson's chapter on velocity vs. predictability is the one I quote in promotion debriefs.
Reading
Books that changed how I think, not the ones I bought. One sentence each on what stuck, with the thing I disagreed with where it applies.
Three shelves: engineering, non-fiction, and fiction. I update this page only when a book actually moves something.
02
Staff EngineerWill Larson
I read this the year I went from senior to lead. The archetypes (tech lead, architect, solver, right-hand) saved me a year of mis-targeting myself and others.
03
The Manager's PathCamille Fournier
Required reading for the IC→manager jump. The honest one-pager on what a 1:1 should and shouldn't be is worth the price of the book.
04
Resilient ManagementLara Hogan
Re-read every six months. The 'BICEPs' framework for psychological needs in feedback is in my muscle memory now.
05
AccelerateForsgren, Humble & Kim
The reason I gate engineering health on DORA metrics and not vibes. The methodology chapter is dry; the findings are not.
06
The GoalEliyahu Goldratt
A novel about a manufacturing plant that's secretly the best book on systems thinking I've read. The 'theory of constraints' is what I reach for when a team is stuck and nobody can say why.
07
Tidy First?Kent Beck
Sixty-page book, ten years of thinking. Beck's rule for when to clean up vs. ship is what I now use to coach engineers out of premature refactoring.
08
Designing Data-Intensive ApplicationsMartin Kleppmann
The reference I open three times a year. The chapter on consistency models is the one most people never get past, and also the one that pays back hardest.
Currently reading
Recently finished 'Tidy First?'. Currently re-reading 'Resilient Management' for the fifth time. Next up: 'The Pragmatic Engineer' by Gergely Orosz, after a long backlog of skipping it for the newsletter.