Reading List 2025: Books That Changed How I Build Software
1 min read
The list
| Book | Key takeaway |
|---|---|
| Staff Engineer (Larson) | Writing is your highest-leverage activity |
| DDIA (Kleppmann) | Choose replication strategy by failure mode |
| The Manager’s Path (Fournier) | 1:1s are for the direct report, not the manager |
| System Design Interview (Xu) | Framework matters more than the answer |
| Clean Code (Martin) | Names are the most important documentation |
| Debugging Teams (Fitzpatrick) | Psychological safety beats process every time |
The surprise hit
Debugging Teams by Fitzpatrick and Collins-Sussman (Google). I expected war stories. What I got was a practical guide to building trust on engineering teams. The advice on code review (praise in public, critique in private, focus on the code not the author) is the best I’ve read.
What I learned
The best technical books aren’t about technology. They’re about people making decisions about technology.