Will Larson

I was looking forward to reading this from all the hype online. The author seems experienced and nice enough.

But this book is terribly edited. The structure made very little sense. The transitions between numbered sections were so abrupt I had to reread some parts a few times to make sure I wasn't missing a connection. Normally a book would help the user with whitespace to the end of the page and a new chapter.

Additionally, there were some grammatical and spelling mistakes. I can only assume show more this book was not edited (or not by a professional editor).

Moreover the complete lack of company context/background as well as no underlying philosophy makes this a book of tips and tricks thrown into the ether. Some parts are useful for inspiration but little else.

But, as others have described, the pages are thick so despite the physical bulk it's a quick read. show less

Encoding software is a highly technical task, but effective leadership is often anything but technical. Combining the two thus can be supremely difficult, but this pair of skills is necessary to fill roles like Chief Information Officer (CIO) or Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Unfortunately, advice is hard to come by in the literature since only a few extended books in this space. To better fill these gaps, Will Larson, known for his deep looks at engineering business practices, offers this show more guide.

As the title suggests, this book’s intended audience is for aspiring engineering executives. It seeks to mentor the next generation of technical leaders. It does that fairly well by providing many actionable pointers and lessons from others’ experiences. Getting this information at the beginning of one’s new station can prevent impactful mistakes.

I’m a researcher, not an executive, and don’t aspire to such a business role. Therefore, this book doesn’t apply directly to my life situation. I don’t feel able to critique its contents adequately. Nonetheless, I appreciate that many of those I communicate with regularly do fit into this camp. Understanding their professional situations is in my best interest. Larson certainly helped me dive deeper into the problems that they seek to solve regularly with their work. show less

A solid book (possibly the first or only?) about what it means to be a senior leader who sets direction and carries substantial latitude and responsibility, while being in a non-management role for software-first organizations. There's a bit in here about managing folks in this "staff plus" engineering role, but it mostly synthesizes the experiences of people who are actually doing these roles -- including an admirable and useful number of voices from people in demographics underrepresented show more in the field. The book articulates best practices and a technical leadership "how-to" that mirrors all the management track support books that exist. It doesn't say much that is surprising, but the normalization of experiences, especially minority experiences, makes it worth reading for its target audience (the very small subset of folks considering/in/managing this particular role).

NB: The book is self-published and almost all of the content is also available on Larson's blog. Proceeds from book sales fund increased access for underrepresented communities in technology. show less

This was a book full of good, practical advice. However, in the end it didn't go beyond beyond a collection of loosely related essays on a myriad of topics. I will give it credit for being a set of tips that is targeted at managers of managers in tech, so in that sense it was quite applicable for me.

The book failed for me though because, ultimately, it was a pile of fish and I wanted to be taught how to fish. The author told the reader his approach to handling leadership challenges. I like show more his approaches! I'd love to work with Larson. Much of what he has can apply in situations I am in. But in the end, I don't really feel like I know anything more how to be the person who figures out what is needed when the information here isn't quite a right fit. I learned lots of facts. I didn't enrich my mental models. This read like a bunch of (very high quality) blog posts structured into a book. From a book, I want something more.

Still, the advice is good, and I went back and forth between two stars and three. What landed me on two stars was structural. The book often would mention concepts and instead of providing even a brief definition of them would refer to an article online. All of the endnotes were just links (with QR codes, which is useful) and didn't even have the title of the article or book linked which can be extremely useful in determining whether or not to go deeper. It was just persistently annoying enough for me to round down instead of up. show less