The Manager's Path

Even though this book is primarily targeted at engineering managers, I found it extremely useful as a software engineer searching path to leadership roles.

I did not read book fully cover to cover, but rather focused on chapters that were most relevant to me at the moment.

Core Chapters

Chapters number 2, 3 and 4 were particularly insightful for me:

• Chapter 2: Mentoring - This chapter discusses the importance of mentoring in career growth. It provides practical advice on how to find a mentor and how to be a good mentee. I found this chapter particularly useful with multiple real world examples.

• Chapter 3: Tech Lead - This was the core chapter for me. It describes the role of tech lead in detail, including responsibilities, challenges, and skills required. I found the advices from this chapter especially useful as I am aspiring to become a tech lead in the near future.

• Chapter 4: Managing People - This chapter covers what good people manager qualities are. It discusses topics such as communication, feedback, and conflict resolution. I found this chapter useful in understanding how to build strong relationships with team members.

Chapter 6+

Chapter 6 and onwards were are more about managing multiple teams, other managers and organizations. I found some parts interesting, but for now I am not in this step of my career yet, so I did not dive deep into these chapters and mostly skipped them.

I would recommend this book to any software engineer chasing the lead role. It doesn’t matter if you go technical or managerial path, this book provides valuable insights into both directions. This helped me to understand both roles better and learn what my counterparts are dealing with on daily basis.

Happy reading! 📚