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Comment by amirkdv | Hacker News Reader

I suppose link compilations like this have some value some times. But if you clicked on it because you're new to EM and keen, here are a few books that are much more helpful IMO:

- The Manager's Path, by Camille Fournier

- An Elegant Puzzle, by Will Larson

- Team Topologies, by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais

- Thinking in Systems, by Donella Meadows

- Also see: references cited in the above and other works by same authors

Disclaimer: Not a seasoned EM and definitely not the first to recommend these on HN.

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- “Managing Humans” by Michael Lopp aka rands - https://managinghumans.com/

A edited collection of blog posts with other material that does a very good job describing how to tackle the transition from Engineer to Manager.

- “The Truth About Managing People” by Stephen Robbins https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Robbins-...

An invaluable “Cliff Notes” style book about many topics (truths) in management. Each topic (“truth”) gets a page or so overview, key points and links to the standard “references”.

Hahah, Managing Humans is great. I saw someone reading it on Muni, read it over their shoulder for a few stops, and bought it later that day.

+1 to Manager's Path and Elegant Puzzle

One other point I'd add that isn't covered particularly well in this list: the process of becoming an engineering manager and interviewing for the job[1] are both challenging processes unto themselves.

[1] https://blog.tryexponent.com/how-to-prepare-for-an-engineeri...

Also highly recommend the book “The Phoenix Project”. It highlights common pitfalls and solutions through a narrative of a character thrown into their first time leading a team.

The "Devops Handbook" should be a must if you're into platform.

I would not recommend anyone An Elegant Puzzle. No disrespect to the author's writing ability and no discredit to his experience. I thought the book had no flow (it was a curated collection of his blog posts, or something like that). He described in detail the decisions he made or things he learned but since he didn't explain any context about the company at the time I could not figure out how any of it was relevant to me. And I've worked everywhere in companies of varying size between F500 and Series A.

I do agree The Manager's Path is a good one though.

Some other favorites are High Output Management by Andy Grove, Managing Transitions by William Bridges, The Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno, Measure What Matters by John Doerr, Peopleware by Tom DeMarco, The Innovator's Dilemma, etc.

I read team topologies and found some of the information highly inaccurate. Even the idea of recommending that the shape of your team shapes the architecture of your software seems suggest an extremely low discipline and foresight of business needs

The Manager's Path, by Camille Fournier is my personal favorite. Highly recommended.

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