7 Best Software Engineering Books for Experienced IT Professionals to Read in 2024
My favorite technical books for experienced IT professionals, developers, DevOps engineers, and project managers to learn about Software development, delivery, and projects
Hello guys, if you are looking for some interesting novel-style tech books to read this weekend then you have come to the right place. Earlier, I have shared the best software architecture books and in this article, I am going to share the best tech books for experienced developers to not just learn technical skills but also operational and management skills in a fun and easy way.
Disclaimer — I may receive a small compensation if you buy any book using links in this article.
I always like to read books which are interesting first and informative later because it’s very difficult to go through a book which informative but not interesting and that’s why when I found an interesting tech book which is full of life lessons, I buy it and read it again and again and this book list is collection of such books.
Someone told me long ago that
If we learn from our mistakes then we can only learn a few things but if we learn from others’ mistakes then there is no limit, and what better way to learn from someone’s mistake than reading books.
I am an avid reader throughout my life, when I was a kid, I used to read Comics and Kids' stories, while I was growing up I started reading magazines and novels and when I started with Programming and Software development, I start exploring technical books.
Even after so many years of tech and programming and a busy schedule, I make an effort to read books, particularly while traveling.
Last year also I read a few interesting tech books, which I really liked and thought to share with you guys. These are the books that are highly recommended for senior developers, project managers, tech leads, team leads, solution architects, and programmers.
I won’t say that you will find every book as good I find but they are worth checking, if you connect and like, go on to read the book and learn something from it to make your life better.
This is also for many of my readers who have asked repeatedly about interesting tech books which are not about programming languages, frameworks, or a tool but about mindset, skills, and daily programmer life.
7 Best Tech Books for Experienced Programmers, Leads in 2024
Without wasting any more of your time, here is my list of best technical, programming, software development, delivery, and DevOps books for experienced developers.
They will enhance your knowledge of software development and process and they are also very easy to read, many of them are written in a novel style so you will not only learn but also enjoy reading them.
1. The Phoenix Project
This is one of the great books which has been there for quite some time but I only find it last year, yes it happens. The last time it happened to me was when I discovered the classic Clean Code book after spending a few years in programming.
This is a must-read for any senior developer and tech lead as it summarizes how automation and DevOps help and why every developer should have that mindset.
It’s like a novel and very interesting to read. You won’t feel bored, I actually finished the whole book on a long train journey. If you can read just one book this year, I would recommend this book. It will change your mindset and shape you into a better programmer, developer, and person.
And, if you want to learn DevOps and become a DevOps engineer then I also recommend checking out Azure DevOps Fundamentals for Beginners course from Udemy. It’s a great course to learn DevOps and Azure Cloud.
2. The Unicorn Project
This is the follow-up book of The Phoenix Project. The full title of the book is “The Unicorn Project — A Novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data”. If you haven’t, this is again a tech book presented as a novel which means getting through it won’t be a hard effort.
The book follows up the life of one of the senior lead developers and architects from The Phoenix Project. Gene Kim is a great storyteller and If you have liked The Phoenix Project, you will also love this book.
It’s not only interesting to read but at the same time very enlightening and provides some useful insights to improve your technology business.
And, if you are keen to become a Software architect, I also suggest checking out the Developer To Architect: Mastering Software Architecture course on Udemy. It’s a great resource for aspiring software architects.
3. Site Reliability Engineering
The Site Reliability Engineering: Google’s Secret Sauce For High Availability And Happy Ops is another great book for experienced programmers, support people, operations, and tech lead in general. I’ve read this book recently and for me, it was a fantastic experience.
I learned how things are really done at scale, or should I say at Google scale, and the fact that no one is perfect, but with proper organization, skills and training they can handle anything.
The Kindle version of this book is also known as Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems is also available at just $27.99
By the way, if you are interested in learning DevOps, I also recommend Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Cloud DevOps Engineer Professional Certificate Specialization by Google Cloud on Coursera. It’s a great resource for anyone who wants to start his career as DevOps Engineer or SRE.
4. Accelerate: Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations
This is another awesome course for senior developers and tech lead who wants to build high-performance solutions for their organization. Accelerate Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations by Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim, author of the first book in this list, the Phoneix Project.
Through four years of groundbreaking research, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance — and what drives it — using rigorous statistical methods.
This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research. You will discover how to measure the performance of their teams, and what capabilities they should invest in to drive higher performance.
In short, one of the best books for technical leads and CIOs who want to build and scale a high-performance technology organization. And, if you are keen to improve the performance of your Java application, Java Multithreading, Concurrency & Performance Optimization is another great resource for you.
5. Continuous Delivery
If you are looking to set up CI and CD in your project or just starting with DevOps then this is a must-read book for you. Getting software released to users is often a painful, risky, and time-consuming process.
This book sets out the principles and technical practices that enable rapid, incremental delivery of high-quality, valuable new functionality to users.
Through automation of the build, deployment, and testing process, and improved collaboration between developers, testers, and operations, delivery teams can get changes released in a matter of hours — sometimes even minutes-no matter what the size of a project or the complexity of its codebase.
Jez Humble and David Farley authors of this course start by presenting the foundations of a rapid, reliable, low-risk delivery process.
After that, they introduce the “deployment pipeline,” an automated process for managing all changes, from check-in to release. Finally, they discuss the “ecosystem” needed to support continuous delivery, from infrastructure, data, and configuration management to governance.
And, if you need a course recommendation for CI/CD then DevOps, CI/CD(Continuous Integration/Delivery for Beginners course on Udemy is another great resource.
In short, one of the best books to learn about continuous delivery and integration and a must-read book for senior developers, tech leads, and DevOps champions.
6. Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems
With the growth of Cloud Computing, the adoption of Microservice architecture is also growing because it goes hand-in-hand with cloud computing. Both deployment and scalability of Microservice are easier compared to Monolithic applications and that’s why many companies, both big and small are using Microservices.
But developing Microservices brings its own set of challenges and problems and that’s where this book helps you.
With lots of examples and practical advice, this book takes a holistic view of the topics that system architects and administrators must consider when building, managing, and evolving Microservice architectures.
This is one of the best books to learn about Microservices and I highly recommend this book to senior Java developers, programmers, Tech leads, and solution architects who are responsible for making tech-related decisions.
And, if you need a course on Microservice development with Java and Spring Framework, I recommend Master Microservices with Spring Boot and Spring Cloud by Ranga Karnam on Udemy. It’s a great course to build Microservices in Java.
7. Team Topologies
This book is a bit different than the previous books from this list as it doesn’t focus on technologies but it teaches you something more important, managing teams.
This is a fantastic book to read if you manage a software development team. Even if you are not managing teams, you will learn a lot about improving teamwork by going through the case studies and synthetic approaches presented in this book.
It provides a lot of deep insights for organizing the development team for high performance. I highly recommend this book to every team leads and project manager to read, especially if you are managing a remote development or support team at this time.
And, if you need a few more resources on team building then Building Your Team: How to put together the perfect team course on Udemy is another awesome resource to start with.
That’s all about some of the best books senior developers, tech leads and software programmers can read. There is a good chance that you might have read many of these books already, which is great. You may be able to suggest a few more books to me and my readers.
Other Recommended books for Programmers and Software Developers
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Thanks for reading this article so far. If you like these technical novel-like books then please share them with your friends and colleagues on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
If you have any questions or feedback then please drop a note, and if you want, you can also suggest a few titles programmers and developers like us will love to read and should be on this list.
P. S. — If you want to just one thing at this moment, I would suggest, just go and read “The Phoneix Project”. You will not only learn but enjoy the story for sure.
