Software Leadership

At most technology companies, you'll reach Senior software engineer, the career level for software engineers, in five to eight years. At the career level, your company's career ladder won't require that you work towards the next promotion; being promoted further is an exception rather than expected. This is also when many engineers are first given an opportunity to move into engineering management.

Are you a software engineer dreaming of the CTO title? Already a CTO looking to level up? This is the playbook you've been waiting for. THE UNICORN CTO is the most comprehensive guide ever written on technology leadership—packed with 95,000 words of battle-tested wisdom from the trenches of building platforms serving millions of users. 📊 WHAT'S INSIDE: ✓ 35 in-depth chapters covering EVERY aspect of the CTO role ✓ 250+ insider tips you won't find in any other book ✓ 30+ real-world case studies (successes AND failures) ✓ Proven frameworks: STAR-L storytelling, CTO Portfolio ...

Engineering isn’t broken because people stopped caring. It’s broken because product thinking got lost. In a world where shipping is fast but impact is rare, Product Driven offers a new model for engineering leadership. One built on outcomes, not output. If you’ve ever led a software team and wondered why the work feels disconnected, why your best engineers start coasting, or why everything still flows through you no matter how senior your team gets, this book is your roadmap out.

Based on years of work in the field with scores of companies, including Bosch, 3M, Schlumberger, and Rio Tinto, The Scrum Fieldbook delivers a hands-on, practical approach to rapidly delivering value for companies and organizations. Scrum is the secret weapon behind some of today’s most...

Most software engineers are taught how to work hard. Very few are taught how to think differently as responsibility grows. At some point in an engineering career, effort alone stops explaining outcomes. The problems become less clear. The feedback becomes vague. Expectations shift quietly—from delivering tasks to shaping outcomes. Thinking Like a Staff Software Engineer is written for that moment. This book is not about tools, frameworks, or promotion checklists. It is about the judgment, leverage, and decision-making that experienced engineers are expected to develop—but rarely receive...

Faced with a software project of epic proportions? Tired of over-committing and under-delivering? Enter the dojo of the agile samurai, where agile expert Jonathan Rasmusson shows you how to kick-start, execute, and deliver your agile projects. Combining cutting-edge tools with classic agile practices, The Agile Samurai gives you everything you need to deliver something of value every week and make rolling your software into production a non-event.

Data science happens in code. The ability to write reproducible, robust, scaleable code is key to a data science project's success—and is absolutely essential for those working with production code. This practical book bridges the gap between data science and software engineering, and clearly explains how to apply the best practices from software engineering to data science.

How can we apply technology to drive business value? For years we've been told that the performance of software delivery teams doesn't matter - that it can't provide a competitive advantage to our companies. Through four years of groundbreaking research to include data collected from the State of DevOps reports conducted with Puppet, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance - and what drives it - using rigorous statistical methods.

The Responsibilities of Senior Engineers Judgment, Stewardship, and Decision-Making in Long-Lived Software Systems Most software engineering books teach you how to build systems. This book is about what happens after you are trusted with them. As engineers become more senior, technical skill stops being the primary constraint. Output becomes less visible. Authority becomes indirect. Decisions become harder to reverse. Responsibility expands—often without clear boundaries, explicit instruction, or formal power. The Responsibilities of Senior Engineers examines that transition. This book is...

Software startups make global headlines every day. As technology companies succeed and grow, so do their engineering departments. In your career, you'll may suddenly get the opportunity to lead teams: to become a manager. But this is often uncharted territory. How can you decide whether this career move is right for you? And if you do, what do you need to learn to succeed? Where do you start? How do you know that you're doing it right? What does "it" even mean? And isn't management a dirty word? This book will share the secrets you need to know to manage engineers successfully.

This book takes you on a journey from the early days of PCs, through the evolution of technology, to the assembly of teams that built the bedrock of today's digital world. Sinofsky shares firsthand experiences, revealing the challenges and triumphs encountered while navigating Microsoft's corporate dynamics, and how external forces like the press and partnerships influenced the trajectory of personal computing.

One day you are a senior engineer solving hard technical problems. The next day someone asks if you have "ever considered management." Maybe your manager left and the team needs someone. Maybe you hit a compensation ceiling and management looks like the only ladder left. However it happens, you are now staring at a decision that will reshape your career — and most of the advice you will get about it is useless. The tech industry has a well-documented habit of promoting its best builders into roles that require an entirely different skill set, then acting surprised when the transition is ...

Few books in computing have had as profound an influence on software management as "peopleware". The unique insight of this longtime best seller is that the major issues of software development are human, not technical. They’re not easy issues; but solve them, and you’ll maximize your chances of success. For this third edition, the authors have added six new chapters and updated the text throughout, bringing it in line with today’s development environments and challenges.

How to negotiate and manage your software portfolio without getting taken advantage of by your suppliers. The fuse on your software budget is BURNING fast! Software companies have crafted a one-sided business model, and they are the only winners. BOOM! You need to understand NOW how one-sided your software relationships and contracts are. Leveling this playing field will provide you with an advantage over your competitors who do not understand the complexities of one of the most critical contracts in your business.

In this insider’s look into the world’s biggest tech company, former CEO and SVP of Google share how they helped engineer a new strategy and philosophy to help them thrive—a perfect book for seasoned business employees and the tech curious. Today, Google is a global icon that regularly...

In Coaching Agile Teams, Lyssa Adkins gives agile coaches the insights they need to adopt this new mind-set and to guide teams to extraordinary performance in a re-energized work environment. You’ll gain a deep view into the role of the agile coach, discover what works and what doesn’t, and learn how to adapt powerful skills from many allied disciplines, including the fields of professional coaching and mentoring.

What is the true meaning of quality? How can you influence positive attitudes towards quality within the workplace? Leading Quality teaches you how to influence and align your company’s definition of quality, so that you can deliver the best possible experience to your clients. You will learn the techniques successful leaders use to make their strategic decisions and you will be given the tools to ensure that your team is in alignment to achieving common goals.

Game development isn't just about ideas and creativity. It's about survival. It's about turning your vision into a product that retains, monetizes, and scales—without burning out your team or going broke. The Game Product Management Handbook gives you the real-world systems, mental models, and growth frameworks used inside studios that ship and scale. No fluff. No theory. Just tactics forged through 16 years of painful pivots, missed payrolls, and unexpected wins.

The quota just got bigger. The buyers got smarter. And AI just leveled the playing field — for those who know how to use it. Enterprise software selling has always rewarded the most prepared, most persistent, and most strategically sharp account executives. In 2026, there's a new variable in that equation: artificial intelligence. The AI-Enabled Sales Executive is the definitive playbook for quota-carrying enterprise AEs, sales development representatives, and sales leaders who want to use AI to close more business — without losing the human edge that actually wins deals. This is not a ...

Offering a critical guide for CEOs, CTOs, and all stakeholders weary of software failures costing their companies dearly, Jeffrey Palermo uses his book to address the pervasive issues in software development that threaten business continuity and growth. This five-step process to ensure software success starts with a stark reminder of how poor software can cripple even the largest enterprises.