By Gergely Orosz, the author of The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter and Building Mobile Apps at Scale
Navigating senior, tech lead, staff and principal positions at tech companies and startups. An Amazon #1 Best Seller. New: the hardcover is out! As is the audibook. Now available in 6 languages.
As Alexander ascended to the throne, he set out to fulfill his ambition of conquering the Persian Empire, which at that time was the largest empire in the world. With his loyal companions, including Hephaestion (Joseph Fiennes) and Ptolemy (Elliott Gould), Alexander embarked on a series of military campaigns that would take him from Greece to India.
The year 2004 witnessed the release of a monumental film that would leave an indelible mark on the world of cinema. “Alexander” is a historical epic film directed by Oliver Stone, which tells the story of the life and conquests of the ancient Greek king, Alexander the Great. The film stars Colin Farrell as Alexander, along with a talented ensemble cast, including Anthony Hopkins, Orlando Bloom, and Javier Bardem.
The film chronicles the life of Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, who ruled a vast portion of the known world in the 4th century BCE. Born in 356 BCE, Alexander was the son of King Philip II of Macedon and Queen Olympias. From a young age, Alexander was tutored by the famous philosopher Aristotle and was trained in the art of warfare by his father.
Directed by Oliver Stone, “Alexander” (2004) boasts an impressive cast and crew. The film’s screenplay was written by Christopher Kyle, with a story by Oliver Stone and Christopher Kyle. The cinematography was handled by Rodrigo Prieto, who captured the grandeur and majesty of ancient civilizations.
Upon its release, “Alexander” (2004) received mixed reviews from critics, with some praising the film’s visuals and performances, while others criticized its pacing and historical inaccuracies. Despite this, the film was a commercial success, grossing over $250 million worldwide.
Over the years, “Alexander” (2004) has developed a cult following, with many regarding it as a visually stunning and thought-provoking epic that explores the complexities of human nature and the consequences of ambition.
The book is separated into six standalone parts, each part covering several chapters:
Parts 1 and 6 apply to all engineering levels: from entry-level software developers to principal or above engineers. Parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 cover increasingly senior engineering levels. These four parts group topics in chapters – such as ones on software engineering, collaboration, getting things done, and so on.
This book is more of a reference book that you can refer back to, as you grow in your career. I suggest skimming over the career levels and chapters that you are familiar with, and focus reading on topics you struggle with, or career levels where you are aiming to get to. Keep in mind that expectations can vary greatly between companies.
In this book, I’ve aimed to align the topics and leveling definitions closer to what is typical at Big Tech and scaleups: but you might find some of the topics relevant for lower career levels in later chapters. For example, we cover logging, montiroing and oncall in Part 5: “Reliable software systems” in-depth: but it’s useful – and oftentimes necessary! – to know about these practices below the staff engineer levels.
The Software Engineer's Guidebook is available in multiple languages:
You should now be able to ask your local book shops to order the book for you via Ingram Spark Print-on-demand - using the ISBN code 9789083381824. I'm also working on making the paperback more accessible in additional regions, including translated versions. Please share details here if you're unable to get the book in your country and I'll aim to remedy the situation.
I'd like to think so! The book can help you get ideas on how to help software engineers on your team grow. And if you are a hands-on engineering manager (which I hope you might be!) then you can apply the topics yourself! I wrote more about staying hands-on as an engineering manager or lead in The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter.
I've gotten this variation of a question from Data Engineers, ML Engineers, designers and SREs. See the more detailed table of contents and the "Look inside" sample to get a better idea of the contents of the book. I have written this book with software engineers as the target group, and the bulk of the book applies for them. Part 1 is more generally applicable career advice: but that's still smaller subset of the book.