Today I want to share with you a list of the MUST READ books for the
Senior+ grade. Yes, let's talk Senior+. Not everyone needs and will be a Staff+ engineer by title, but the knowledge from this books will help to get into the right mindset and master tools that will distinguish you as an expert.1️⃣ Clean architecture by Robert C. Martin. This book was the one that taught me, that we write code to help business. Potentially, there shall be no line of code we produce that does not bring business closer to its purpose. This book is more about the application architecture than the workload architecture, but the principles that are explained there can be scaled.
2️⃣ Designing Data-Intensive Applications. For me, this book is an almanack about present technologies. Yes, before this book, I knew that there are relational databases, document databases, graph databases, etc. But I did not have everything sorted out clearly. This book goes over almost all the technologies that might be used during the design of distributed systems and explains them in detail. It will make you a much stronger specialist. Hard skills will flourish 📈.
3️⃣ Пиши, сокращай. Our work, to a high degree, consists of written communication. It's very important to be able to express your thoughts shortly and effectively, make them such, so they can be consumed quickly. This helps you convey your ideas and get information from others swiftly.
4️⃣ Leading Great Meetings. It was the book that made me confident, that I could create and facilitate any meeting. It explains what meetings are, what their purpose might be, and how to effectively achieve this purpose. Also, it provides a simple set of tools that you can use in meetings. It's a great start into the meetings facilitation topic.
5️⃣ Nonviolent Communication. Satya Nadella the CEO of Microsoft demanded that top management read this book when he was appointed CEO in 2014. This book changes your mindset about communication and helps you create and maintain a healthy, non-toxic environment. The concept helps both at work and in your day-to-day life. I second Satya and would love more people to read or listed to the book.
These five books will definitely make you a better specialist. The one that is confident in their actions, the one that achieves results, the one that people want to work with and companies want to hire 😉
Please, share your favourite books in the comments. I'm looking forward to update my reading list.