Show HN: My book for programmers called “Junior to Senior” was published today

After a four year journey, the book I wrote to help junior and mid-level programmers earn their first promotion was published today . The book is titled Junior to Senior: Career Advice for the Ambitious Programmer and is now available on Holloway’s website[0].

I truly believe that soft-skills are what makes the difference between a good programmer and a great one. I also believe that anyone can learn the soft-skills needed to accelerate their programming career.

I wish I’d had better resources to learn these things in the early years of my career and I’m hoping this book will become a useful resource for the next generation of programmers to build successful careers.

What this book covers:

Choosing a career path: generalist vs. specialist

What makes you a senior engineer?

How to deal with feeling like an impostor

How to build trust and work with your manager

How to recover when you make a mistake, and what to do during incidents

How to ask better questions

How to read and understand unfamiliar code

How to add value to your team and company

How to identify and manage risk

How to deliver better results

How to communicate more effectively with both technical and non-technical audiences

The importance of a healthy work-life balance

How to ask for a promotion, and how to prepare for it

I wrote this book because these soft-skills are rarely taught in coding bootcamps or computer science degrees, yet they are critical to every programmer’s career trajectory. Almost every programmer I know, including me, had to learn and develop these soft-skills on the job. It took hard work and a lot of trial and error to learn how to communicate my ideas effectively, navigate office politics, manage risk, and so many other things that programmers encounter in their jobs today.

Get instant lifetime access at holloway.com. Use this link for a launch discount:

[0]: https://www.holloway.com/b/junior-to-senior?vip_code=JTSLAUN...

Show HN: My book for programmers called “Junior to Senior” was published today
holloway.com

Thank you! I agree, there's plenty of resources out there to learn how to code, but there's a lot that goes into being a professional programmer than just writing code. I'm hoping this will be a good resource for developers working towards their first promotion.

Thanks! And congrats on your book as well. It turned out to be way more work than I imagined, but it was worth it. I ended up learning and growing as an engineer myself during the whole process. Getting the right words down on paper really forces you to organize your thoughts and clarify what points you're trying to make.

I'm hoping this helps junior devs focus on the soft skills earlier in their career, rather than putting them off until they're ready for the promotion.

Is there a kindle version?

Congrats on the book! Glad you're sharing what you learned during your career.