By Gergely Orosz, the author of The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter and Building Mobile Apps at Scale
Navigating senior, tech lead, staff and principal positions at tech companies and startups. An Amazon #1 Best Seller. New: the hardcover is out! As is the audibook. Now available in 6 languages.
In the golden era of Tamil illustrated storytelling, before the dominance of Japanese manga and American graphic novels, there was a homegrown hero that occupied the shelves of every suburban library and the hands of every curious schoolboy: Velammal Comics.
Overview:
Velammal is a popular line of Tamil comics published by Anandabazaar Patrika (ABP) since 2002. Focused on Indian myths, history, and culture, it is known for its rich artwork and child-friendly storytelling, catering to Tamil-speaking audiences.
: Academic researchers have noted that these comics often visualize sexual and moral anxieties within the context of Indian society, navigating the space between tradition and modernity. Content and Availability
Historically, comics were often dismissed as lowbrow entertainment meant exclusively for children. However, the medium has proven to be incredibly versatile, spanning every genre imaginable, from superhero action and science fiction to autobiography and historical non-fiction. The rise of graphic novels in the latter half of the twentieth century further cemented the medium's reputation as a serious art form capable of exploring mature themes and sophisticated sociopolitical commentaries. Works like Art Spiegelman's Maus or Alan Moore's Watchmen demonstrated that sequential art could tackle profound human experiences with the same depth as traditional novels.
Do you have a working Velammal link? Share it only via verified libraries. Let’s keep the art alive, legally and respectfully.
The book is separated into six standalone parts, each part covering several chapters:
Parts 1 and 6 apply to all engineering levels: from entry-level software developers to principal or above engineers. Parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 cover increasingly senior engineering levels. These four parts group topics in chapters – such as ones on software engineering, collaboration, getting things done, and so on.
This book is more of a reference book that you can refer back to, as you grow in your career. I suggest skimming over the career levels and chapters that you are familiar with, and focus reading on topics you struggle with, or career levels where you are aiming to get to. Keep in mind that expectations can vary greatly between companies.
In this book, I’ve aimed to align the topics and leveling definitions closer to what is typical at Big Tech and scaleups: but you might find some of the topics relevant for lower career levels in later chapters. For example, we cover logging, montiroing and oncall in Part 5: “Reliable software systems” in-depth: but it’s useful – and oftentimes necessary! – to know about these practices below the staff engineer levels.
The Software Engineer's Guidebook is available in multiple languages:
You should now be able to ask your local book shops to order the book for you via Ingram Spark Print-on-demand - using the ISBN code 9789083381824. I'm also working on making the paperback more accessible in additional regions, including translated versions. Please share details here if you're unable to get the book in your country and I'll aim to remedy the situation.
I'd like to think so! The book can help you get ideas on how to help software engineers on your team grow. And if you are a hands-on engineering manager (which I hope you might be!) then you can apply the topics yourself! I wrote more about staying hands-on as an engineering manager or lead in The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter.
I've gotten this variation of a question from Data Engineers, ML Engineers, designers and SREs. See the more detailed table of contents and the "Look inside" sample to get a better idea of the contents of the book. I have written this book with software engineers as the target group, and the bulk of the book applies for them. Part 1 is more generally applicable career advice: but that's still smaller subset of the book.