An attempt to collect and maybe condense my reading on career advice from the last decade or so.
Introduction
Last updated: 2026-07-12
Have a plan, do something else and update the plan. Drifting is for your twenties, but do drift if you can afford it.
Selection
- Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track by Will Larson
- A forty-year career
- he has a lot of writing on his blog: https://lethain.com/
- Being Glue noidea.dog
- Basically a TA
- Signs that it’s time to leave a company… by Adrian Cockcroft
- No, you don’t want to hire “the best engineers”
- and obviously Would You Still Hire Me If I Were A Worm
- What Makes a Great Engineer – Luke Scott
- Kalzumeus has a lot of good writing, e.g., https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
- Lessons from a year’s worth of hiring data - Aline Lerner’s Blog
Management
- Things I’ve learned in my 10 years as an engineering manager
- When the Mismanagerial Class Destroys Great Companies
Productivity and leadership
- James Shore: A Useful Productivity Measure
- Leadership Is A Hell Of A Drug — Ludicity
- Something weird happens to companies when they hit 150 people
- Workplace scaling and culture-change observations.
Office Politics
- The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office”
- Cynical theory of corporate hierarchy and careers.
Hiring and engineering teams
- How to hire low experience, high potential people
- Effective Hiring for Small (or All) Teams
- Diversity in Software Engineering - Daniel Russo, Ph.D.
Career growth
- Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise
- Signs that it’s time to leave a company… by Adrian Cockcroft
Communication and writing
- Written Narratives — bobek.cz
- Why We Hate Working for Big Companies — Luke Kanies
- Weavers and Concluders: Two Communication Styles No One Knows Exist
- Communication-style awareness useful at work.
- Defensive Communication
- Workplace communication that reduces defensiveness.
- The Problem with “Writing is Thinking” - Animalz
- Professional writing advice for clearer communication.
Learning and professional development
Entrepreneurship and exits
Testing
AI
This is relatively new, so this is just a blip.