Productivity systems for engineers and managers: setting goals, building focus habits, turning intention into consistent output.
548 karma · joined August 2, 2012
https://www.softwareengineeringhandbook.com/
The trade-off seems reasonable so far. By going static, the main thing I lose is comments.
The project is still in progress, but I made solid progress over the weekend.
The project is here: https://github.com/yusufaytas/yapress
on leadership in tech and software development
It sits on top of existing tools like PagerDuty, Jira, Prometheus, Elasticsearch, and Slack, and normalizes them into a shared schema. It doesn’t store operational data, it just brokers requests through pluggable adapters and returns unified structures.
The motivation came from incident response workflows that still require hopping across multiple vendor UIs and APIs with different auth models and query languages. Instead of another “single pane of glass,” this is meant to be a small, transparent glue layer.
On top of the core service, I’m also exposing everything via an MCP server so LLM agents can query incidents, metrics, and logs as typed tools without needing vendor-specific knowledge.
Currently open source, written mostly in Go and TypeScript. Still early, but usable with PagerDuty, Jira, Prometheus, Elasticsearch, Slack, and mock providers. Feedback from SREs and infra folks has been very helpful so far.
Marketing it on Amazon, LinkedIn, and Reddit. It's slow but I'm making progress.
It looks like marketing within large companies is vastly different from marketing for smaller initiatives.
Our book isn't just a technical book on software development. Instead, it goes into the life aspects of being a software engineer such as migration and parenting.
Many of us have wished for mentors who could guide us beyond the technicalities, offering insights into personal growth and career navigation. Recognizing this gap, we've created a resource that provides practical wisdom.
By taking a holistic approach to software engineering, we address both personal and professional development in a way that few other books do. This unique blend sets our book apart, offering a clear differentiator that defines our brand.
We’ve experimented with various approaches to promotion, including HN, KDP, Amazon Ads, and most recently Reddit Ads. It's been interesting to see which strategies resonate with the audience, but we're still figuring out the best way to get it in front of the right people.
And marketing is really hard!
We might consider it making it down the line!
Our combined expertise spans multiple industries, leadership roles, and technical challenges, making Software Engineering Handbook a unique blend of insights from both continents. This diversity helps us provide practical, well-rounded advice for engineers looking to excel in their careers.
We often lack mentors who guide us beyond the technical matters. In our careers, we wished having such mentors. In this book, we try to offer practical wisdom and answers to questions you may not even know you had.
It’s a holistic approach to software engineering, addressing both personal and professional growth in a way few other books do.
I and Ender have written a Software Engineering Handbook that covers key topics in software development, including best practices, design principles, and leadership advice for engineers. I’m now looking to sell it, but I'm unsure of the best approach to get it in front of the right audience.
I’d love to hear your suggestions on:
=> Marketing strategies for technical books
=> Approaches for building a community or audience around this type of content
=> Pricing models that have worked for you
Any advice or experiences from others who have successfully sold technical content would be much appreciated!
Thanks!
We’re excited to share our newly published book with you, and we’d like to tell you a bit about our journey.
Ender and I have been friends since school. We attended classes together, collaborated on projects, and eventually graduated. Our paths diverged when he moved to the United States and I relocated to Ireland, but our friendship remained strong. Throughout our careers, we tackled various side hustles and learned a lot from our jobs.
One thing we always felt was missing was a mentor, someone we would love to freely ask questions and get answers, not just about software engineering, but about life in general. We didn’t always make the best decisions, both professionally and personally, and we realized how beneficial it would have been to have guidance.
In June 2022, during one of our calls, we talked about the value of having such a mentor. That conversation sparked the idea for this project. We decided to write a book encompassing everything we believe is crucial for both work and life.
We’re now excited to share our book with you and hope it serves as the mentor we wished we had.
Looking forward to your feedback and thoughts!