My impression reading this book (actually listening to it, since it was an audiobook) was: this book is an extended version of “Soft Skills: The Software Developer’s Life Manual”, Sonmez’s first book. If you don’t know John Sonmez let me give you a brief introduction about him: he is a software developer who decided to take his life to a new level. Long story short, he started as a programmer, then created a blog about programming and soft skills for programmers (https://simpleprogrammer.com), and developed as consultant, public speaker and now as an entrepreneur in the “soft skills for programmers” education business.
If you are a software engineer or a wannabe this is the book for you. It starts talking about how to become a software developer and how to get a job. Then it talks about what you need to know as a software developer from a technology perspective and later how to work as a developer (soft skills) and how to advance you career and the options you have. This is the perfect book if you don’t know what to do next.
Most professional developers already have a grasp about what technologies are available, what they need to learn technically and what paths for development there are. But this book goes beyond that, it goes over topics where most geeks don’t think about: how to dress, sell your ideas, deal with prejudice, create a reputation and much more. It doesn’t go that much deeper though, but enough to sparkle ideas and make you think, research more about it and apply it as you see fit.
For instance, he talks about job offers negotiation. Once you have received a job offer how do you negotiate to take the best out of it. Oh boy, if I had read this before my last job offer, my life would definitely be different by now.
This book is all about growth. Even if you are not an software developer you still can learn so much with it. One of the reasons I’m writing this review is precisely because the author emphasizes the importance of having a blog. Although I still haven’t found my niche, I realized I listen to about 1 or 2 audiobooks per week, and they have been helping me tremendously. If I just write about them I might help other people too. Therefore, this blog now has a new purpose: help people discover books that will help them. OK… this post has been going sideways now, but all this is just to explain one of the impacts this book has had on me. If you want to know other benefits that blogging provides you, read the book! 😉
If you think the book may help you, buy it here:
Gustavo Carvalho
Gustavo's Blog 