The Manager`s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

This is an incredible book, and I would highly recommend it for anyone who is at all interested in technical leadership at any level. It focuses very specifically on the challenges of combining technical focus with leadership and/ or management, and steps through roles from hands-on development, through mentoring, tech lead and various levels of engineering manager all the way up to CTO. Along the way, it gives a realistic and well-thought-out sense of what these roles are (and are not), how they differ from lower roles and from subtly different roles at a similar level, and how to succeed at them. The most interesting thing I took from it though was that the understanding you can gain about the hierarchy of technical leadership roles is useful at all levels, including what we would call "individual contributor" roles (i.e. doing technical work with no direct reports). Engineers at a relatively early stage in their careers can benefit from the first few chapters, which cover what to expect from your own manager, how to start mentoring and how to consider whether long-term you are more interested in management or technical tracks. Equally, having done some low-level management over the last couple of years and now seeking to return to more of a senior technical/ architecture role, I still found the later chapters (about senior tech management roles) fascinating, because I know that even if I never take on those exact roles, understanding the responsibilities and thought processes of those who have them will make me much more effective in working with them and advancing my own ideas.

As an engineer who has stayed in engineering for the last 20 years this book was a read through the many episodes of my career and those of my colleagues. It is a map of non engineering career moves in an engineering career. It moves through many stages, however uncomfortable, an engineer may find themselves in. How to seek out more responsibility, how to just quietly test the water, or jump head first into a more senior role. Too many engineers seem to move in senior positions now that simply haven't put the time in to understand the nuances of business, of people, and of social interaction on all levels. Just because you're an amazing python programmer shouldn't be a promotion to looking after the team. All management should make their engineers read this who aspire to lead, no matter if in projects or with people.

This book is written for tech people. It approaches all subjects from that angle which is great. If you have just started managing, or want to take a peek into management, or have even managed for several years, this is a great book to read. It is like a handbook that you can refer to when you have doubts or questions about challenging situations.

I had read the eBook once and this is one of those books that I felt I need to keep a hard copy as well, to highlight parts add my notes, and refer back to every now and then. I'm feeling more comfortable with paper copy in such circumstances!

Camille is very knowledgeable of all aspects of management within the software industry, and after reading just one page I spent the rest of the book just nodding my head. With sound advice and snippets from others in the industry this book felt well considered. The way it was written was also very inclusive and engaging.

Mandatory reading for any software engineer looking to expand their skill set to include better communication and understanding of how to lead and manage a project/team. This book is immensely useful, and that is regardless of whether moving to the management track is your ultimate goal or not.

Great book but mine was misprinted in a couple of places and so has blank pages.

The quality of this print is appalling. Many pages are ok, but there are lots of crass defects such as large ink stains, and pages with blurred text that’s hard to read. Makes me wonder if this is authentic.

it is highly recommended for not only who wants to be a manager, entry level engineer also should read the book too to conduct with his manager. And if you are japanese read this book and stop idiotic procedure in your company!!!

I am an experienced technology executive and consultant for engineering managers and execs. Based on my experience, this book is now the best book you can buy to learn modern engineering management. Previous contenders have included Peopleware, High-Output Management, The Mythical Man-Month, Good To Great, and others you've probably heard of. They are fine books, but they are either somewhat out of date, overly general, or a combination of both. This book is different. Fournier's book is a comprehensive overview of all the roles on the career path of modern technical management (starting from "senior engineer mentoring an intern" all the way up to CTO) and how to deal with the challenges at every step of the way. What sets this book apart, other than being comprehensive, is that it is the product of direct and highly relevant experience. Fournier has worked at huge companies, small startups, and medium-sized companies, all in hyper-competitive industry settings. You've probably read other management books and it always goes like this: they give you a piece of general advice about how to deal with an issue. You try it (assuming it is even specific enough to put into action and isn't just a feel-good HR platitude), you run into a snag, and now the advice is useless because the rosy assurances in the book about how employees were going to act reasonably didn't really work. You throw the book away and think there is something wrong with you because everyone keeps on talking about how the book is great and it's just your fault that you couldn't make this great advice work. Fournier's advice is not like that. She starts with the general outlines of the strategy, but then tells you about times when she had to confront the issue herself, how she tried to apply the strategy and screwed up (there are instances in the book where she openly admits "The first time I tried this I fell flat on my face"), what kinds of problems kept the strategy from working, how she modified the strategy and overcame the problems, and finally and most importantly, wraps up with a summary about how context and trade-offs affect how you apply the advice. Acknowledging and explaining how common variations and implementation details determine how a general strategy will play out is what makes this book unusually useful and relevant. Because everyone's job and situation are a little bit different, Fournier does an excellent job of breaking down broad strategies into their core principles, while separating out which details you can change based on individual situations, so that you can choose between trade-offs when you apply the strategy to the specific challenge you are confronting. Lastly, this book will give you confidence. Confidence that you're not alone, that others have faced the same problems and surmounted them, that you can do it too. Confidence that you can screw something up but still pick up the pieces and try again, that you'll still get it right the second or third time, and that you are going to get to where you want to go. This book is the product of years of tough lessons and hard-won success. Buy it. You won't regret it.

Delivered amazingly fast, a few chapters in impression is that it's an awesome read and provides lots of insights into the Manager's path.

Fui recentemente promovida a Tech Lead e foi-me recomendado este livro. Tenho a dizer que tem sido bastante útil a sua leitura para me ajudar a adaptar melhor a este cargo. Gostava de ter lido isto antes, por isso mesmo que ainda não sejam Tech Leads, vale a pena lerem.

oldukça iyi ...