The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhou


Today I finished The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You by Julie Zhou. This is a recent management book target to new managers or those who are mostly in line management level as opposed to mid-level management or executive leadership. The book brings personal experiences of Julie starting as… Continue reading The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhou

The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier


Yesterday I finished reading The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change by Camille Fournier. This is a must-have book for any software engineering manager and a great book for anyone who is even remotely involved with software engineering in any capacity. I liked the book so much that I immediately ordered… Continue reading The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier

The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels


I finished The First 90 Days by Michael D Watkins today. I don't think it's very relevant for me but at higher level of leadership, this will be a good book to check. In this book Michael elaborates below 9 points for successful transition of leaders into new jobs with new responsibilities. 1. Promote Yourself… Continue reading The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

High Level System Design and Architecture Topics


These are some of the topics that a standard backend engineer should know. Here we are consciously excluding any particular tool, framework or programming language. Instead we want to focus on topics related to high level system design and architecture. It can't be an exhaustive list ever. I will try my best to keep adding… Continue reading High Level System Design and Architecture Topics

The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz


Here are main points of The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz. 1. Be impeccable with your word Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. 2. Don’t take… Continue reading The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni


Last week I finished reading Patrick Lencioni's wonderful book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. When I started the book, I couldn't leave it and finished in a single day (as an audiobook). It's short and captivating all throughout. Update: I finished it for a second time in July ahead of a management book club discussion in… Continue reading The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni

An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson


I am glad I stumbled upon An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson last week while listening to a podcast. I immediately took audible monthly subscription to read it. While listening to the book, I felt as if Will Larson has been talking to me over a fireside chat and sharing his… Continue reading An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson

Being Strategic: Thinking and Acting with Impact


This weekend I finished a fantastic Udemy course on Strategy by Executive Coach Ron Carucci. All Marqetans get free Udemy for Business account, so I didn't have to pay for this. Here is the link if you want to consider taking this course. I am also putting my notes and learnings from this course below.… Continue reading Being Strategic: Thinking and Acting with Impact

Marqeta Hosts Cockroach Labs at First #eng-meetup


A lively engineers' meetup with nearly 60 attendees including engineers from Bay Area software companies was held at Marqeta's Oakland Headquarter on the evening of January 29. Cockroach Labs Solution Engineer Roko Kruze gave an engineering talk on how CockroachDB delivers resilient, consistent, cloud native, distributed SQL at scale. He described how CockroachDB lets developers… Continue reading Marqeta Hosts Cockroach Labs at First #eng-meetup

What You Do Is Who You Are by Ben Horowitz


I finished today Ben Horowitz's latest book that was published last month - What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture     This is another good book from Ben although I would rate his classic The Hard Thing About Hard Things much higher. He talks about business culture and how to shape… Continue reading What You Do Is Who You Are by Ben Horowitz