Maybe this the best place to ask this.
Unfortunately I've ended up supporting application and not actually coding so during interviews I can't get past technical parts. I feel very embarrassed by my lack of technical abilities. Anyone else had this issue? How did you rise above it?
Books that changed my career as a software engineer
131–140 of 295 posts
Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer
#132Read Uncle Bob's books.
Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer
#133Pragmatic programmer is rather problematic for me.
I think it covers some good basics for people early in their career but a lot of its guidance can be harmful when taken extremely literally or like dogma.
Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer
#134I'm not sure how any of these books have anything to do with actual career advancement. Career trajectory improvements are generally catalyzed by high-risk business decisions (e.g. doing a startup, joining as an early employee, job hopping, etc.), or political posturing (e.g. getting promoted, gaming the stack ranking, aggressive negotiations, etc.). Being a good engineer doesn't really have anything to do with eithe…
I'd argue that you have near 100% control over the work/office culture of your employer. You have 100% control over who you work for, so you can control the office culture you work in. It's a 1 to 1 relationship.
If during an interview they say.. "3 days in the office" you counter with "how about zero?" They say "The best we can do is 2", you again counter with "Zero works for me." Don't take the job.
Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer
#135Is it just me or do other people struggle to read these kinds of very technical books? It's not that I don't comprehend, it's that my brain finds it boring and hard to focus. I think I have trained my brain so much on rapid skimming of websites for useful info, while throwing away most of the content, that I tend to do the same with books, which really doesn't work well. Has anyone found alternative ways to consume t…
I honestly think it’s alright. After spending 40-50 waking hours with tech in a week the last thing I want is extend the tech, or professional aspect, of my life more.
I love reading literature though. Hours, engrossed.
This might just be me. Tech is just a means to pay the bills for me - there’s no passion, hatred, love involved here.
Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer
#136Clean code... To this day I cringe when I see methods/functions over 20 lines long.. Or when I see commented code blocks in one function..
Other have mentioned The Mythical Man Month, and I'd say it's a great book. Sadly, more often than not, it's something I wish I could staple to managements foreheads. "read this now before our next planning session"
The Rspec book was a great book, that helped me fully embrace TDD, and this has led to more sleep filled nights than I had a right to before its consumption.
1984... This one terrified me so much, that I have to include it. I write code much more securely because of it.
Strange in a Strange Land. If only because I learned what GROK means.
Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer
#137The thing that changed my career as a software engineer, in terms of seniority & remuneration by time and effort, was by changing my efforts from learning arbitrary tech to learning the domain I worked in. Asking useful domain-related questions gets you noticed in stand ups and helps you write the right code. I work in fintech so the best bang for my buck I’ve had was reading an entry level cert in investment finance…
This is good advice for something like finance. But many software companies are out to "disrupt" very broad areas, and unless you intend to stick in one such area, I doubt there is a whole lot of benefit to doing that. For example, if you are developing software at Uber, there is no "domain" to speak of. Ditto for a search engine at Google. The company pioneered information retrieval in the internet age, so what's th…
From your examples, it seems that you make a distinction between B2B (with possibly internal clients) and B2C.
The general advice that would still apply to both would be: understand who your client is and what they need in the context in which they evolve, be they consumers in a country you're not familiar with or mechanical engineers you barely know the job of.
Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer
#138Ruby Under a Microscope is the first and only technical book I will finish; if you like Ruby and are curious about how things work under the hood it's a joy to read. You need to look for something that actually interests you. Reading some bible on design patterns with hundreds of useless Java or C++ examples often IS boring. And let's be honest it probably won't make you a better software developer. A close second to…
Edit: I meant to say it's the first I have finished (which will happen soon). I'm not saying there aren't other worthy technical books out there I'm sure there's plenty.
Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer
#139Is it just me or do other people struggle to read these kinds of very technical books? It's not that I don't comprehend, it's that my brain finds it boring and hard to focus. I think I have trained my brain so much on rapid skimming of websites for useful info, while throwing away most of the content, that I tend to do the same with books, which really doesn't work well. Has anyone found alternative ways to consume t…
Have you tried audiobooks? It helps me a lot to do something boring, like cleaning the kitchen or emptying/filling the dishwasher, while I consume content. Somehow when my body is doing something in automated mode I can focus well on my thoughts or audio/video content. Audiobooks and podcasts are perfect for this, videos are a bit more difficult as you’re likely to miss something, and text content is not adapted at all.
Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer
#140Is it just me or do other people struggle to read these kinds of very technical books? It's not that I don't comprehend, it's that my brain finds it boring and hard to focus. I think I have trained my brain so much on rapid skimming of websites for useful info, while throwing away most of the content, that I tend to do the same with books, which really doesn't work well. Has anyone found alternative ways to consume t…
I totally agree, to the point where I’m skeptical about people saying they’ve read something cover to cover.
Someone once recommended me to start at the back of each chapter and do the the problems and only read the chapter or even parts of the chapter for problems I couldn’t solve.
It comes with its own set of drawbacks but it does help with getting through text books where the author was paid by per letter.