I find myself constantly referencing great books, blog posts, and podcasts, then sending them one-off. Here’s a list of my favorites.
Engineering
- System Design for Recommendations and Search - fantastic overview of core retrieval to ranking steps of modern pre-LLM recommendation and search systems. I directly used ideas from this at Amazon to improve homepage recommendations. Author recently followed up with Improving Recommendation Systems & Search in the Age of LLMs
- Patterns for Building LLM-based Systems & Products - similar to above, with a focus on LLM systems. Directly used learning here for Shopping Guides. Author summarized all LLM lessons in the much broader What We’ve Learned From A Year of Building with LLMs
- Microservices - parody video spoofing microservices architecture that is too real. Worth rewatching anytime you think “we’ll just make this a microservice”
- The Missing README - canonical book to give to new software engineers. Covers core concepts of using git, testing, doing code reviews, safe deployment and more.
- Data Structures and Algorithms in Python - very readable book to understand core algorithms with actual python implementations which made learning and deeply understanding much easier for me.
- How Big Tech Runs Tech Projects and the Curious Absence of Scrum - specific methodologies don’t matter, autonomous engineering teams create a plan and execute, with product focused on strategy of what to build, not delivery.
- Migrations Done Well: Typical Migration Approaches - multipart guide to successfully architecting, planning, and executing a migration.
Leadership
- Staying on the path to high performing teams - concentrate investment where it will matter, considering if a team if falling behind, treading water, paying tech debt, or innovating. Much more great content in his book…
- An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management - extremely helpful overview of management lessons Will Larson learned at Stripe, Uber, and Digg. Cannot blindly reproduce elsewhere, but great mental models. He recently added The Engineering Executive’s Primer: Impactful Technical Leadership which I also found useful
- The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Updated and Expanded - it’s famous for a reason. Simple but clear ideas for how to start a new role - to make sure to understand the situation, understand your mandate and what you need to accomplish, collaborate effectively to build strategy then execute. Don’t fire before aiming. I reread before each career transition.
- Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow - famous for a reason. Organizing team around deliverables for fast flow, with either stream-aligned, enabling, complicated subsystem, or platform teams is a great mental model. Reality can be complicated but a great lingua franca for an org structure.
- Why Microsoft’s Reorganization Is a Bad Idea - 2013 post by Ben Thompson at Stratechery with great core take on divisional structure being valuable in multi-product companies. He followed up with why Apple is different here: Apple’s Organizational Crossroads
- Drake’s Equation - practical methodology to break a very complex problem down to understandable and manageable components. Have used directly in forming stream-aligned team goals laddering up to company objectives. Beyond the video, if you get a chance to do a Harrison Metal course I highly recommend it.
Management
- Manager Tools - invaluable 20 year long podcast on core management skills. Start with ‘The Trinity’ of 1:1s, delegation, and feedback. Actionable and specific ideas, including specific talk-tracks for almost every situation. Occasionally find it overly formal, but the place to start.
- The Twinge - as a manger, trust your judgement, ask the extra question, make sure it makes sense. If you are picking up on uncertainty or a problem there probably is one, and it’s worth digging in to see how you can help.
Strategy/Systems of thought
- Seeing Like a State - epic book with the subtitle ‘How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed’. Core thesis is that efforts to make systems comprehensible for the builder (e.g a city that look beautiful from a birdseye view - thank Brasilia) don’t necessarily meet the real needs of the people in the system. Constant reminder to be humble about org design and change initiatives recognizing how many grand schemes have failed by not taking into account actual needs of people in the system.
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - subtitle is ‘An Inquiry into Values’ which helps sum up the insight that craft itself is worthwhile and there is beauty in seeking quality. Just read it!
- The Goal - classic book on applying systems thinking to improve processes. Protagonist is in charge of improving operations at a manufacturing plant, and the narrative helps elucidate need to think about theory of constraints and impact of bottlenecks on overall system performance. At minimum, makes you really appreciate CI/CD and testing delays!
- 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy - very useful framework to think about what constitutes sustainable market power. The powers are scale economics, network economics, counter positioning, switching costs, branding, cornered resource, and process power. The book is worth reading, rereading, and understanding deeply when creating business strategy.
Career
- The Engineer/Manager Pendulum - post that gave me courage to move back to an IC at Amazon, getting hands on keyboard again building AI systems. Great mental model for a long career.
- Managing Up — Stories and Guidelines for Working with Senior Leaders - good simple post with core skills of managing up including being excellent at your job, earning trust, and communicating proactively.