The 2024 tb.lx Tech Reading List
All the bookworms know that every year there is a new 1 book a month, or 52 book a year, or 10 pages a day challenge. This Reading List is not about that — but you can certainly include some of these titles into your reading goals! This Reading List came up because we wanted to know what our tblxers have been feeding their minds with. So, we asked our tblxers what was on their reading list for this year and collected 35 suggestions from different work fields that can help level up your personal and professional growth.
Why this list is for you: At tb.lx we develop sustainable transportation solutions in a global ecosystem. We are the Digital Product Studio for Daimler Truck, and specialize in connectivity and e-mobility products for all the group’s brands, including Mercedes-Benz Trucks, Freightliner, Western Star, Thomas Built Buses, FUSO, BharatBenz, Setra, and Rizon. tb.lx’s customer-centric products improve vehicle efficiency, cost reduction, and predictability for commercial vehicle industry users all around the world, such as fleet managers, drivers, operators, and cities.
To do so, we collaborate within our interdisciplinary teams and globally to connect our trucks and buses to a sustainable future through technology. We’re also highly invested on personal and professional training for our tblxers. We do so through an internal library to maintain a flow of proactive knowledge-sharing, as well as internal training initiatives and a professional training budget for all our tblxers. This means you’ll find reading suggestions from diverse roles from a proactive company in the tech industry.
Without further ado, here is the result: a curated 2024 tech reading list with extensive recommendations, easy-to-click links (not sponsored!), and plenty to research through.
Our full list
David Gomes, Backend Engineer
- Designing Event-driven Systems, by Confluent (e-book, free, by providing one’s email)
- Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results, by James Clear — David’s comment: “Not exactly tech-focused, but very useful for growth of any kind!”
- Dive into Design Patterns, by Alexander Shvets — Good for juniors and trainees, pattern beginners, pattern refreshers, and language switchers.
Fábio Silva, Backend Engineer:
- Designing data-intensive applications, by Martin Kleppmann — Fábio’s comment: “It’s from 2017 but I would still recommend it!” 🔍 Also suggested by Raphael Adrien, Principal Engineer (Architect); and Valter Francisco, Backend Engineer! 👀
- Tidy first: A Personal Exercise in Empirical Software Design, by Kent Beck 🔍 Also mentioned by Raphael!
Gabriel Cunha, Principal Product Manager:
Gabriel’s comment: “These are two product books I am looking forward so far. I am already reading Lenny’s book: it’s cool because it’s a super insightful limited edition and all profits go to charity.”
- Transformed: Moving to the Product Operating Model, by Marty Cagan (expected to be released in March)
- The Best of Lenny’s Newsletter: Volume 1, by Lenny Rachitsky — (“Timeless advice from the world’s top product and growth experts”)
Raphael Adrien, Principal Engineer (Architect):
- Software Design X-Rays: Fix Technical Debt with Behavioral Code Analysis, by Adam Tornhill
- A Philosophy of Software Design, by John Ousterhout
- 99 Bottles of OOP: A Practical Guide to Object-Oriented Design, by Sandi Metz — 2nd Edition (“A practical guide to writing cost-effective, maintainable, and pleasing object-oriented code.”) — Raphael’s comment: “Sandi is my favorite author.”
- Fundamentals of Software Architecture: An Engineering Approach, by Mark Richards and Neal Ford
- Tidy first: A Personal Exercise in Empirical Software Design, by Kent Beck 🔍 Also mentioned by Fábio!
- Just like Fábio and Valter, Raphael also suggests Design data-intensive applications, by Martin Kleppmann
João Paulo Figueira, Data Scientist:
JP’s comment: “These two books are probably the best for anyone wanting to learn Statistics and Machine Learning. The first has superior theoretical support, while the second is more applied and covers more areas, especially deep learning. I think they are essential in the library of any professional in the field.”
- An Introduction to Statistical Learning (with Applications in R and in Python) by G. James, D. Witten, T. Hastie, R. Tibshirani, and J. Taylor- both from Springer Texts in Statistics
- Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques to Build Intelligent Systems, by Aurelien Geron
Daniela Ribeiro, Frontend Engineer:
Daniela’s comment: “I’m not big on books, but this series was recommended to me by many people and when I got to read them they were life-changing, and surprisingly an easy read!”
- You don’t know JS, series by Kyle Simpson
Valter Francisco, Backend Engineer:
Valter’s comment: “Absolutely essential to understand how modern and highly data-intensive applications are built.”
- Just like Fábio and Raphael, Valter also suggests Design data-intensive applications, by Martin Kleppmann
- In the same line, Valter adds: System Design Interview — An Insider’s Guide: Volume 2, by Alex Xu and Sahn Lam — This book can be considered a sequel to “System Design Interview — An Insider’s Guide”. Reading Volume 1 is helpful, but not required since Volume 2 covers a different set of system design interview questions and solutions.)
Mariana Barros, Product Design Lead:
Mariana’s comment: “The design team actually has an extensive list of reading suggestions.” (So, we chose a few for this blog post!)
- The Design Of Everyday Things, by Don Norman
- Sketching User Experiences: The Workbook, by S. Greenberg, S. Carpendale (Author), N. Marquardt, B. Buxton
- Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web and Mobile Usability, by Steve Krug
- Building Design Systems: Unify User Experiences through a Shared Design Language, by Sarrah Vesselov, and Taurie Davis
- Atomic Design, by Brad Frost
- User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product, by Jeff Patton, and Roy McCrerey
- The Jobs To Be Done Playbook: Align Your Markets, Organization, and Strategy Around Customer Needs, by Jim Kalbach
Nikita Savytskyi, Head of Service Design:
Nikita’s comment: “[Between Design and Product] most probably there will be lots of duplications as Design is not about drawing, but about solving human problems — which sometimes is done by Product too.”
- Jobs to be done: theory to practice, by Anthony W. Ulwick
- Just Enough Research, by Erika Hall
- User Research — A practical guide to design better products and services by Stephanie Marsh
- INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan (Also suggested by Ana!)
- Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value, by Teresa Torres
- Strategized by Roman Pichler
- The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
- Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck, by Jim Collins
- Rework by David Heinemeier Hansson
- It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by David Heinemeier Hansson
Ana Belo, Talent Acquisition Lead:
Ana’s comment: “I heard a lot about these here at tb.lx last year!”
- Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow, by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais
- Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love, by Marty Cagan (Also suggested by Nikita!)
Saskia Loja, Brand Strategist:
Saskia’s comment: “Working with people from different fields requires not only mastery of your technical skills and knowledge but, most often, awareness of your soft skills, flaws, and biases. I’m finding this book a great self-reflection and discussion trigger.”
- The Emotionally Intelligent — 20 Key Emotional Skills for the Workplace, by The School of Life for Business
And last but not least, for the early adopters, Adrien Bestel, our Principal Ops Engineer, suggests:
(Don’t take this one too seriously! Or do! 😂)
💻 🚛 🔋 🌿 If you’d like to know more about how we work at tb.lx, our company culture, work methodologies, tech stack, and products you can check our website and join our journey in creating the transportation solutions of tomorrow by following us on social media: LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter/X, and Facebook.
