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Ask HN: Books on engineering management, company growth, etc.?
Anyone have any good reads centered on engineering management ideally at companies in small to mid level? I'm not looking for a management style per se, I just want to read about personal accounts from people in the field.
Seems like there must be some good memoirs out there that aren't just self-help management books.
- dingosity 3y agoWell... Peopleware by DeMarco and (of course) Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks. Also... just noticed that Richard Hamming's autobio got published a few years back (and has a forward by Bret Victor!) Amazon has a "Look Inside" feature so you can check out the first couple of chapters and see if it's what you're looking for. I just really love Bret Victor's presentations and Hamming is a bit of a legend. And I just went downstairs to my library and found "The Manager's Path" by Camille Fournier. I read the first several chapters and found them reasonable. And I just rememebered I wanted to read the last couple chapters. The ones in the middle are less to do with my situation, but I'll probably read them eventually. Fournier includes a chapter on "what you should expect from a manager," which I thought was a good twist. I found it worthwhile.
- rubicon33 3y agoThese are some great suggestions, now I feel spoiled by choice! If I told you I was most interested in anecdotes and hard-learned lessons from leaders in the space, which would you say most applies? Thanks!
- OhMeadhbh 3y agoProbably Mythical Man Month and then Manager's Path after that. But I found this reference to Hamming's "The Art of Doing Science and Engineering" at Mary Rose Cook's site, which leads me to believe it may be "anecdote-rich." https://maryrosecook.notion.site/Build-software-quickly-6c09597aa68c4dee9453e109fd1303f4?p=0d8f1e0792854a1d97b1f32b799dd6f3&pm=c https://maryrosecook.notion.site/Build-software-quickly-6c09...
- retrocryptid 3y agoEd Yourdon did a book called "Death March" which might be apropos, though more of a cautionary tale of what NOT to do.
- rubicon33 3y agoSounds interesting, I'll check it out. Thank you!
- YuriNiyazov 3y agoI really liked “high output management”
- rubicon33 3y agoThat looks really in line with what I was interested in except I was hoping for something a bit more recent. A lot has changed since the 80s (I think?). Thanks!
- YuriNiyazov 3y agoI found it very applicable at a 2010’s Silicon Valley startup. A lot more things stayed the same than changed, so this is still a deeply applicable book.
- creer 3y agoSomeone recommended The Ultimate Entrepreneur: The Story of Ken Olsen and Digital Equipment Corporation, 1988, by Glenn Rifkin and George Harrar - as a business management story telling comparable to Soul of a new machine. It's on my list. (Offhand, btw, I would expected it tainted by the west coast vs east coast business style difference.) Oh, and in The Soul of A New Machine itself, the "responsible adult" is the engineering manager. And for far more recent and startup-y stuff, there is Founders at work and European Founders at Work