The Software Developer's Career Handbook

The Software Developer's Career Handbook

by Michael Lopp
Released August 2023
Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN: 9781098116675

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Book description

At some point in your career, you'll realize there's more to being a software engineer than dealing with code. Is it time to become a manager? Or join a startup? In this insightful and entertaining book, Michael Lopp recalls his own make-or-break moments with Silicon Valley giants such as Apple, Slack, Pinterest, Palantir, Netscape, and Symantec to help you make better, more mindful career decisions.

With more than 40 stand-alone stories, Lopp walks through a complete job lifecycle, starting with the interview and ending with the realization that it might be time to move on. You'll learn how to handle baffling circumstances in your job, understand what you want from your career, and discover how to thrive in your workplace.

  • Learn how to navigate areas of your job that don't involve writing code
  • Identify how the aspects you enjoy will affect your next career steps
  • Build and maintain key relationships and interactions within your community
  • Make choices that will help you have a deliberate career
  • Recognize what's important to your manager and work on things that matter

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Table of contents

  1. Preface
    1. O’Reilly Online Learning
    2. How to Contact Us
    3. Acknowledgments
  2. I. Building a Career Playbook
  3. 1. How to Win
    1. A System Thinker
    2. People Are Messy
    3. A System of Improvisation
    4. A Career Blueprint
    5. A Collection of Moments
  4. 2. A List of Three
    1. Technical Direction
    2. Growth
    3. Delivery
    4. Simplifying the Infinite
  5. 3. The Itch
    1. Are You Answering the Email?
      1. The Pissed Itch
      2. Early Warning Signs of Doom
      3. The Contradiction List
    2. Bright and Shiny
  6. 4. The Sanity Check
    1. Stalk Your Future Job
    2. Initial Tuning
      1. Can We Communicate?
      2. One More Softball
      3. No More Softballs
      4. Your Turn
    3. The Close
      1. Long, Awkward Pauses
      2. Adversarial Interactions
      3. How’d It Feel?
      4. Specific Next Steps
  7. 5. The Nerves
    1. Question Types
    2. The Answer Process
    3. The Confidence of Knowing a Thing
  8. 6. The Button
    1. Creatures and Structure
      1. Interview Creatures
    2. A Fresh Perspective
  9. 7. The Business
    1. You Are the Business
    2. Actual Earnings
      1. What Am I Earning?
    3. The Swag
      1. Base Salary
      2. Title
      3. Sign-On Bonus
      4. Stock
    4. Negotiating Roles
      1. Offer Compromise
    5. Walk Away
    6. Better, Faster, and More
  10. II. Deconstructing Management
  11. 8. Your Best Work
    1. The Happy New Year
    2. The Entirety of Your Attention
    3. Thanks, Zack
  12. 9. The Culture Chart
    1. Days
    2. Bridge
    3. Detecting Culture
    4. Culture Definers
    5. Game Over
  13. 10. Managing Managers
    1. A Management Assessment
      1. Is There a 1:1?
      2. Is a Staff Meeting a Casual or Structured Affair?
      3. Are There Status Reports?
      4. What Meetings Does She Schedule?
      5. How Often Is His Hand in the Cookie Jar?
    2. The Essential Elements
    3. The Loop
  14. 11. Managing Up
    1. On Experience
    2. Up
    3. Partial Information
    4. Beware the Doof
    5. Everything
  15. 12. The Leaper
    1. On Excuses
    2. On Delivery
    3. Say Something Real
  16. 13. The Enemy
    1. Management Transformations
      1. The Interrogator
      2. The Prioritizer
      3. The Randomizer
      4. The Illuminator
      5. The Enemy
    2. The M Word
  17. 14. The Impossible
    1. A Hint of an Insane Plan
    2. Skin in the Game
    3. The Importance of Respect
    4. What He Really Wants
  18. 15. Knee Jerks
    1. One-Eighth of a Second
    2. The Jerks
      1. Dr. No
      2. Raging Bull
      3. Still Water
      4. Distiller
      5. The Handler
      6. My Bad
      7. We’re Doomed
      8. I Quit
    3. Stages of Jerk
  19. 16. Invest in the Boring
    1. Sigh
      1. Three Meetings
      2. Make Room for Something Else
  20. 17. Gaming the System
    1. An Entertaining System
      1. Discovery: From Confusion to Control
      2. Optimization, Repetition, and Win: A Paradox and a Warning
      3. Achievement: Who Cares if You Win by Yourself?
      4. The Rules of the Game
    2. The Whiteboard Game
  21. 18. Managing Werewolves
    1. A Dangerous Scenario
    2. People Lie, Some Are Evil, Others Just Want to Screw You Over
    3. This Isn’t Role-Playing; This Is Life or Death
    4. We Can’t Let the Werewolves Win
  22. 19. BAB
    1. On the Topic of Trust
      1. BAB
    2. The Second Staff Meeting
  23. 20. Your People
    1. Share What You Build
    2. You Tell Stories
  24. 21. Wanted
    1. The Requisition Situation
      1. Spend an Hour a Day on Each Req You Have
      2. I Found Them! I’m Done!
    2. Deliberate Want
    3. Hire for Your Career
  25. 22. The Toxic Paradox
    1. Big Fat Toxic Assumptions
      1. Go Team!
      2. A Toxic Paradox
    2. Everyone Is an Adjustment
  26. 23. By Design
    1. Interlude
    2. Your Job as a Leader
  27. 24. The Core of Kindness
    1. The Coach
    2. The Fixer
    3. The Leader
  28. III. Your Daily Toolkit
  29. 25. The Nerd Handbook
    1. Understanding Your Nerd
      1. Understand Your Nerd’s Relation to the Computer
      2. Your Nerd Has Control Issues
      3. Your Nerd Has Built Herself a Cave
      4. Your Nerd Loves Toys and Puzzles
      5. Nerds Are Fucking Funny
      6. Your Nerd Has an Amazing Appetite for Information
      7. Your Nerd Has Built an Annoyingly Efficient Relevancy Engine in His Head
      8. Your Nerd Might Come Off as Not Liking People
    2. Advanced Nerd Tweakage
      1. Map the Things He’s Bad at to the Things He Loves
      2. Make It a Project
      3. People Are the Most Interesting Content Out There
    3. The Next High
  30. 26. The Taste of the Day
    1. The New Gig
    2. The Taste of the Day
      1. The Morning Scrub
      2. Practice Productivity Minimalism
      3. The Evening
  31. 27. The Trickle List
    1. Trickle Creation
    2. The Trickle Process
    3. Structured Improvisation
  32. 28. What We Lost
    1. This Is Not a Meeting
    2. Five or Seven Senses
    3. Endless Bits of Friction
    4. And That Was Not Princess Leia
  33. 29. The Foamy Rules for Rabid Tools
    1. The Foamy Rules
      1. My Tools Appear Deceptively Simple
      2. My Tools Do Not Care Where My Work Is
      3. My Tools Are Designed to Remove Repetitive Motion
      4. My Tools Do Only What I’ve Told Them to Do
      5. My Tools Are My Tools
    2. An Evolving Foaminess
  34. 30. Up to Nothing
    1. An Essential Exercise in Inactivity
    2. Up to Nothing
    3. Don’t Look for It
  35. 31. How to Not Throw Up
    1. Not Throwing Up Is a Two-Phase Process
      1. Phase 1: Practice Endlessly
      2. Phase 2: Throw-Up Avoidance
    2. Fret
  36. 32. Out Loud
    1. Presentation or Speech?
    2. The Unforgivable Mistake
    3. The Disaster
    4. Reduction
    5. Presentation Punctuation
    6. Something for Their Pocket
  37. 33. Bits, Features, and Truth
    1. That Damned Triangle
      1. Bits, Features, and Truth
      2. Circle of Comfort
      3. Circle Analysis
    2. Let the Negotiation Begin; It’s About the Debate
  38. 34. The Reveal
    1. Three Phases
    2. Three Alphas
      1. Alpha Nothing: “I’m saying absolutely nothing.”
      2. Alpha Game: “I’m game, but you drive.”
      3. Alpha Drive: “I’ll drive.”
    3. The Holy Shit Event Horizon
  39. 35. The Sabotage List
    1. The Untitled List
    2. The Reasons
  40. 36. Check Your Work, Ask for Help, and Slow Down
    1. Check Your Work
    2. Ask for Help
    3. Slow Down
    4. What If I’m Wrong?
  41. 37. OK. So, You Can’t Decide
    1. You Just Need to Decide
  42. IV. Your Next Gig
  43. 38. The Screw-Me Scenario
    1. You Might Be Lying
    2. A Rubber Stamp Affair
    3. No Guilt, No Doubts, No Fear
    4. Game On
    5. The Unforgivable Spin
    6. A Screw-Me Detection Policy
  44. 39. No Surprises
    1. Show Me the Money
      1. Measures Versus Content
      2. A Review Is a Conversation
      3. Surprise!
    2. The Permanence of the Written
  45. 40. A Deliberate Career
    1. Three Choices
      1. Question #1: Startup or Established?
      2. Question #2: Industry and Brand
      3. Question #3: Management or Development?
    2. A Complete Opportunity Move
  46. 41. The Curse of Silicon Valley
    1. Apprenticeship
    2. On Language
      1. Everyone Hates Engineering
    3. The Curse
    4. Engineering Gone Mainstream
  47. 42. A Disclosure
    1. Management Is a Total Career Restart
    2. You Go to a Lot of Meetings
    3. You Are a Communication Hub
    4. Abstraction and Filtering
    5. You Will Be a Multilingual Translator
    6. Drama Everywhere
    7. Context Switcher
    8. Say No
    9. Say Yes
    10. Trust So You Can Scale
  48. 43. Mind the Gap
    1. The Gaps
      1. Knowledge and Ability: “Alpha Knowledge”
      2. Power and Influence: “Maestro”
      3. Network and Communication: “The Insider”
    2. A Matter of Perspective
  49. 44. The Cello in Soho Square
    1. Still Playing Destiny
    2. Are You Willing to Do the Work?
    3. To Inspire
  50. 45. The Exodus
    1. This Sucks
      1. Two Threads
      2. The First Wave
      3. The Second Wave
      4. The Third Wave
    2. Which Wave?
  51. 46. Bad News About Your Bright Future
    1. What’s Next
    2. Biased by the Now
    3. An Uncomfortable Ending
  52. Epilogue: Hurry
    1. You’re in a Hurry
  53. Appendix. The Rules of Back Alley Bridge
    1. Preparing for Back Alley Bridge
    2. Rules of Play
  54. Index
  55. About the Author

Product information

  • Title: The Software Developer's Career Handbook
  • Author(s): Michael Lopp
  • Release date: August 2023
  • Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
  • ISBN: 9781098116675