The Best Books for First-Time Managers in Tech
Being a first-time manager in tech can be tough. Thankfully you don’t have to do it alone. Here are some of the best books for first-time managers in tech, written by people who have been there before (and by people who haven’t, but still have a lot to share).
Books for First-Time Managers in Tech
The Making of a Manager
Why you should read this book
Julie Zhuo joined Facebook as Employee 100-ish as a product designer then went on to become the company’s VP of Product Design. Her book is everything she wish she knew before being thrown into management at age 25. Zhuo’s writing is accessible, instructive, and filled with warmth. If you need support as a first-time manager in tech, this book is for you.
Read this book to develop the manager’s mindset.
What you’ll learn
- How to tell a great manager from an average manager
- When you should look past an awkward interview and hire someone anyway
- How to build trust with your reports through not being a boss
- Where to look when you lose faith and lack the answers
A memorable quote
“Your role as a manager is not to do the work yourself, even if you are the best at it, because that will only take you so far. Your role is to improve the purpose, people, and process of your team to get as high a multiplier effect on your collective outcome as you can.”
The Manager’s Path
Why you should read this book
Camille Fournier has “been there before”: she’s worked as a Director of Engineering, SVP of Engineering, and CTO at the innovative tech company Run The Runway. Her book covers the skills you’ll need as your scope of management grows. However far along your tech leadership journey you are, Fournier has actionable advice for you.
Read this book to learn how to lead at all levels: from tech lead to Director to VP and CTO.
What you’ll learn
- How to manage small and large teams
- What to do to deal with people problems and to mentor other managers and new leaders
- How to manage yourself: avoid common pitfalls that challenge many leaders
- Several practices that you can incorporate and practice along the way
A memorable quote
“Good managers know that delivering feedback quickly is more valuable than waiting for a convenient time to say something.”
An Elegant Puzzle
Why you should read this book
Will Larson is a CTO and has been a software engineering leader at Calm, Stripe, and Uber. For over a decade he’s written about his experiences leading technical teams. As a result, Larson’s book covers a broad set of topics including growing high-performing teams, managing technical debt, running reorganisations, creating a strong culture, designing performance management systems, and more. The appendix also provides dozens more books and technical papers. If you want to deal with a specific challenge when managing a software development team, Larson has experiences to share.
Read this book to develop a framework for solving managerial problems.
What you’ll learn
- How to grow high-performing teams
- When you should pay down technical debt
- When to run a reorganisation
- How to design performance management systems
A memorable quote
“Organizational design gets the right people in the right places, empowers them to make decisions, and then holds them accountable for their results.”
Books on Improving Yourself
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Why you should read this book
To say Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman revolutionised our understanding of human behaviour is no understatement. He taught us that there are two ways we make choices: fast, intuitive thinking, and slow, rational thinking. His book shows how often we fall victim to error and bias, despite our best efforts otherwise. Once you’re a manager, the impact of these biases is even greater. Read this book to understand why and how you make decisions – and learn to make better ones.
Read this book to learn how you think.
What you’ll learn
- How people think: the emotional System 1 and the logical System 2
- How common cognitive biases affect our decisions
- How to build awareness of and defences against these biases
A memorable quote
“We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events.”
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Why you should read this book
Some books should be read at least once by all people. Stephen R. Covey’s 7 Habits is one of those books. Regardless of whether you’re a manager or an IC, in tech or another field, you’ll find something of value in Covey’s principles and stories. You’ll remember to “Begin with the end in mind”, “Put first things first”, and “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”.
Read this book if you want to have a more fulfilled life and effective career.
What you’ll learn
- How to prioritise important but not urgent work
- How to adopt an abundance mindset
- What matters to you in your life
A memorable quote
“We began to realize that if we wanted to change the situation, we first had to change ourselves. And to change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.”
How Will You Measure Your Life?
Why you should read this book
Clayton M. Christensen may be best known for The Innovator’s Dilemma, yet the world’s leading thinker on innovation has wisdom to share on achieving a fulfilling life. Becoming a manager is a major step for many technical people: your actions now impact everyone you manage. You’re at the start of a long journey. Christensen equips you with the questions to make the most of it.
Read this book to learn how to make that journey meaningful.
What you’ll learn
- How to find satisfaction in your career
- How to ensure your relationships become enduring sources of happiness
- How to avoid compromising your integrity
A memorable quote
“People often think that the best way to predict the future is by collecting as much data as possible before making a decision. But this is like driving a car looking only at the rearview mirror – because data is only available about the past.”
Books on Managing Technical Teams
The Phoenix Project
Why you should read this book
Most management books tell you what to do. The Phoenix Project shows you how it’s done: this is a fictional story about “IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win” (and a spiritual successor to The Goal). Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford explore DevOps concepts and real-world challenges you might face managing technical teams. This book provides a different way of thinking about work in your organisation and how you can get work done more effectively.
Read this book to understand how work happens.
What you’ll learn
- What bottlenecks exist in your organisation (and what to do about them)
- How to streamline your team’s delivery
- What you need to know about DevOps
A memorable quote
“Improving daily work is even more important than doing daily work.”
Accelerate
Why you should read this book
Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim bring something unique to managing software teams: research. Based on four years of research, the authors present a clear link between how you manage a team and that team’s performance. Use this to focus on the right things as you manage your first team. If you want to start measuring performance so you can manage it, Dr. Forsgren and her colleagues have the research to support you.
Read this book to build high-performing software teams.
What you’ll learn
- The four DORA metrics that matter
- How to measure the performance of your team
- What capabilities to invest in to drive higher performance
A memorable quote
“In our search for measures of delivery performance that meet these criteria, we settled on four: delivery lead time, deployment frequency, time to restore service, and change fail rate.”
Team Topologies
Why you should read this book
Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais provide a practical, step-by-step model for designing teams for better communication. This book will grow your understanding of the types of technical teams and how you should manage them. While you might not be designing teams as a first-time manager, you’ll be interacting with teams every day. Use this book to understand why certain teams work and why others don’t. If you want to understand how your organisation affects your software, this book is your step-by-step guide.
Read this book to solve team communication challenges.
What you’ll learn
- What the four fundamental team types are
- Why communication breaks down between teams
- How to design your organisation so that you can build cleaner software
A memorable quote
“Every part of the software system needs to be owned by exactly one team.”