Reading has been part of my life for a long time – it taught me new skills, and entertained me.
There is something special about programming books, maybe it’s the depth they tend to go to. Or the fact they are written by the people who actually program in real life. Or perhaps, the fact they speak the same language like me.
The list of books here has broaden my skills in software development, soft skills and understanding how the business works. I hope they will inspire you and help with your career.
Books
The Phoenix Project
This is the book which started it all for me — the dream – DevOps, Cloud, Automation.
The novella presents a company’s transformation from classical ops to DevOps, with all the drama on the way.
The story goes about the IT Manager who needs to straighten up the IT operations for the company – or the company will go under.
Learn more about Phoenix Project
The are several personas which you probably met in your workplace. People like Brent – the all-knowing geek who knows everything about every system, and keeps it in his head. Or Eric, who is like Yoda, who guides the main character. This book taught me to recognise four kinds of work: business projects, internal projects, changes and unplanned work. The book shows the journey which a company needs to take to change its ways – in this case from classic IT to DevOps. If you’re in IT, you should read it. If you’re in dev, you should read it. Oh and if you like audiobooks, the Audible version has great voice acting – after years I can still hear Eric’s voice in my head.
The Unicorn Project
Another project about another mysterious creature? This book is a sequel to The Phoenix Project, happening in a similar timeline.
It’s told from the perspective of developers.
Learn more about Unicorn Project
The book focuses on exploring five ideals:
- Locality and simplicity
- Focus, Flow and Joy
- Improvement of Daily Work
- Psychological Safety
- Customer Focus
Over time I find it more valuable than The Phoenix Project. This might be related to my career focus as I’m much closer to the Dev side. If you’ve read The Phoenix Project and feel you need more, read this book.
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
If there’s one book I keep quoting over and over, it’s The Goal.
The book focuses on the Theory of Constraints.
By absorbing the knowledge from the book, you will learn how to identify bottlenecks.
Every system has a bottleneck. It could be prolonged testing time, awaiting approvals, rate limiting API or unreachable decision makers.
There are three main elements affecting performance:
- Throughput: the speed of generating money through sales
- Inventory: Money invested in the system
- Operational expenses: Money spent to turn inventory into throughput
Your goal is to make throughput going up, and inventory with operational expenses going down.
Now, it doesn’t sound a lot related to IT at first. Once you’ve absorbed the book, you realise you can apply this equation to anything. While it’s not a programming book per se, the problems, solutions, and knowledge apply to today’s world. As well as programming.
The Pragmatic Programmer
This programming book is just a goldmine of practical knowledge.
You will learn how and why it’s important to take ownership of your work. Quality, maintainability, and effectiveness of your code prove you take your work seriously.
Learn more about The Pragmatic Programmer
IT is a rapidly changing field, and it’s easy to fall behind. Learning a new language every year and continuously learning are the ways to be always ready for emerging trends, threats and technologies. Have you ever talked to a rubber duck? It’s a debugging technique, where you explain your problem to the duck. Sounds absurd at first, but it works. Talking forces you to think out loud – which is often enough to take you down the wrong rabbit hole. My main takeaway is that the software is a garden rather than a building. Over time it grows in various places and might need trimming here and there. There are many more insights in the book.
The Software Engineer’s Guidebook
If you were looking at one book on operating your programming career, pick this one.
The author worked in a number of big companies like Uber, as well as startups, and presents his knowledge on how to navigate your career.
Learn more about The Software Engineer’s Guidebook
You will learn about:
- Building your career path – both engineering and managerial.
- Differences between big and small companies.
- How to improve your technical and coding skills.
- Planning and designing your application.
- Soft skills, communication, problem-solving and adaptability
- Tips on how to prepare for an interview or performance review. What does it take to go from senior to staff.
This book (finally) convinced me to maintain my work log (or brag document, if you wish) It’s one of the books which can grow with you, as you gain more knowledge and climb next seniority level.
It’s worth coming back to it from time to time.
Soft Skills: The Software Developer’s Life Manual
This book focuses on everything around the life of a software engineer.
While we will see here ideas about Career development, the reader will learn as well about:
Productivity techniques, time management and being focused Financial management, from savings to investment Wellbeing and fitness Soft skills in the form of communication, networking, and self-marketing. Is it safe to say this book falls in the category of self-help books, tailored to developers? Let me know (once you read it!)
Being Geek
This book is interesting, but somewhat I can’t classify it.
There’s a lot about career management. Going from getting the job, being promoted… to hunting for another job.
There’s even a special section on how to handle a Geek – that is you as a reader, are meant to show that part of the book to your other half. I enjoyed this book, but I can’t pinpoint a particular reason why. Maybe because it showed the perspective of IT manager, and how they need to handle problems on their side?
Shell of an Idea: The Untold History of PowerShell
This book documents the story of how PowerShell was created.
Thinking the product which is now a built-in part of Windows and official Microsoft’s management tool would be easy? Wrong.
PowerShell almost didn’t happen.
Learn more about Shell of an Idea
It’s a testament to why working on what you truly believe is worth it. There will be pain, and there will be obstacles – these are part of the journey. And if PowerShell brought you here, make sure to check my PowerShell courses.
Designing Data-Intensive Applications
This is one of those books which keeps coming back in conversations about distributed systems, databases and modern applications.
It explains what happens under the hood when your application needs to store more data, serve more users, or simply keep working when something fails. Replication, partitioning, consistency, streams — topics which can sound scary at first, but the book makes them click.
Learn more about Designing Data-Intensive Applications
It is not a quick read, and it probably shouldn’t be. I keep coming back to it when I need to understand the trade-offs behind a technical decision, rather than just follow the latest pattern.
If you build, design or operate applications which need to grow, this book gives you a much better picture of what is really going on.
Thinking in Systems: A Primer
If you’ve read The Phoenix Project and The Goal from above, and still feel like you want more, this is the book for you.
This might not look like a programming book at first, but it changed how I look at software, teams and problems in general.
The book explains systems, feedback loops and delays in a way which is easy to follow. Once you see them, you start noticing them everywhere: in a deployment pipeline, a growing codebase, a company or even your own habits.
Learn more about Thinking in Systems: A Primer
My main takeaway is that the problem is not always where it appears. Changing one part of a system can have unexpected consequences somewhere else — sometimes much later.
It’s a short book, but one which stays with you. If you want to get better at solving problems instead of just reacting to them, give it a read.
Newsletters
Books are great source of knowledge, but they are frozen in time. To keep up with news, here are technical newsletters I read regularly:
TLDR: All tech, science, and programming news, once a day. Each headline starts with a brief description - making my decision to read. Take a minute to scan through.
TLDR DevOps: Kubernetes, observability, clouds, SRE, programming. All the stuff you need as modern Sysadmin. Same formula as above - short and sweet.
Matt Pocock (AI Hero): I take Matt’s approach to AI reasonable and down to earth. He also speaks plainly about AI - which is not that common for some reason.
Podcasts
I love listening to podcasts while lifting weights… just because.
Pragmatic Engineer: Gergely invites great guests - from people who practically invented our industry, to modern founders who shape the tech world. A lot of great deep dive, technical conversations.
RunAs Radio: If you work anywhere near Microsoft technologies, you’ll feel at home.
What is your favourite programming book?
This is the list – have you read any of these books? Did I encourage you to read any of these books? Let us know, and share your favourite books in the comments!