The Software Engineer's Guidebook

Navigating Senior, Tech Lead, and Staff Engineer Positions at Tech Companies and Startups

By: Gergely Orosz

Narrated by: Nikola Hamilton

In my first few years as a developer I assumed that hard work was all I needed. Then I was passed over for a promotion and my manager couldn’t give me feedback on what areas to improve, so I could get to the senior engineer level. I was frustrated, even bitter—not as much about missing the promotion, but because of the lack of guidance.

By the time I became a manager, I was determined to support engineers reporting to me with the kind of feedback and support I wish I would have gotten years earlier. And I did. While my team tripled over the next two years, people became visibly better engineers, and this progression was clear from performance reviews and promotions.

This audiobook is a summary of the advice I’ve given to software engineers over the years–and then some more. This audiobook follows the structure of a “typical” career path for a software engineer, from starting out as a fresh-faced software developer, through being a role model senior/lead, all the way to the staff/principle/distinguished level. It summarizes what I’ve learned as a developer and how I’ve approached coaching engineers at different stages of their careers.

We cover “soft” skills which become increasingly important as your seniority increases, and the “hard” parts of the job, like software engineering concepts and approaches which help you grow professionally.

©2023 Gergely Orosz (P)2024 Gergely Orosz

Excellent content and narration

I have been following the author's content like Pragmatic Engineer for some time and knew that he has extensive experience working in Big Tech, so bought this without hesitation and happy with it. I'm a Senior Software Engineer with 10+ years of experience and still found the content in this book interesting and useful. It covers a broad range of topics for all levels (junior/senior/staff/EM) and provides practical advice on dealing with different situation at those levels.

This also fits perfectly with audiobook format and narrator does an excellent job too. Recommended for anyone in the software industry.

Great book, full of gold!

Super good book, packed with all the important things. Highly recommended for every person working in tech company.

The book about everything and nothing at the same time

Too broad of a scope and author delivers on none. Too shallow for most engineers.