Will Larson

Encoding software is a highly technical task, but effective leadership is often anything but technical. Combining the two thus can be supremely difficult, but this pair of skills is necessary to fill roles like Chief Information Officer (CIO) or Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Unfortunately, advice is hard to come by in the literature since only a few extended books in this space. To better fill these gaps, Will Larson, known for his deep looks at engineering business practices, offers this guide.

As the title suggests, this book’s intended audience is for aspiring engineering executives. It seeks to mentor the next generation of technical leaders. It does that fairly well by providing many actionable pointers and lessons from others’ experiences. Getting this information at the beginning of one’s new station can prevent impactful mistakes.

I’m a researcher, not an executive, and don’t aspire to such a business role. Therefore, this book doesn’t apply directly to my life situation. I don’t feel able to critique its contents adequately. Nonetheless, I appreciate that many of those I communicate with regularly do fit into this camp. Understanding their professional situations is in my best interest. Larson certainly helped me dive deeper into the problems that they seek to solve regularly with their work.… (more)

Engineering presents unique challenges to managers. Not only are engineering managers usually picked from those who work primarily with objects, but they also receive little training in the discipline. Having little training reinforces a dynamic where little training material is also available to the next generation. To fill this void, Will Larson provides a succinct introduction to the field. His perspective aims to inform from a systems perspective – that is, by observing how managerial actions impact systems of technology.

I’m personally trying to teach myself engineering management techniques to better relate to the software domain at my work. I don’t have much to say in terms of critique because I feel I lack enough experience to judge this book. Generally, I found the reasoning solid though a bit too concise. I hadn’t encountered all of the problems mentioned, so I didn’t grasp the relevance of all the material. In the audiobook, the numbers in the section headers were read aloud, and I found this a bit distracting. Still, my overall experience was positive.

The topic of engineering management is only moderately understood. No standard primer exists for this discipline, and engineering fields change continually. Based on experiences at software startups, Larson provides several books to explain how to do the job better. Executives, managers, and even engineers themselves can benefit from understanding this field’s problems better.… (more)