Customer Reviews

Leading and Managing in Silicon Valley : Successful Engineering Entrepreneurs' Best Practices and Career Guidance for Tomorrow's Technical Leaders on Leadership, Management, Development, and Business

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This is a first of a kind book. Written by a cohort of authors that have successfully made the transition from engineering to executive leadership, it's been eye opening to read the examples and advice. I certainly wish this book had been around when I first made the switch from individual technical contributor to manager. Recommend it highly!

Thomas Hempel and team do a great job of giving new and old technology leaders lessons on management, technology, and organizational structure. This book is a great guide for those thinking about getting into an engineering leadership position, those who have to work with engineering/technology leaders, and those who just landed in a leadership position and are wondering, "What now?". Lessons are drawn on real life experiences and cover topics from development methodologies to dealing with people issues to managing c-levels and the board. It's like having a mentor on your bookshelf to whom you can ask all those questions you were afraid to ask.

Leading and Managing in Silicon Valley is an excellent book with both thoughtful ideas and practical guide in technical management. I know one of the authors who has many years' solid technical management experience. This book was written by a group of his peer VPs/CEOs, and I think it makes this book different from others in this subject in the following aspects:

1. The authors know clearly what the technical manager's career path is and which problems they encountered, are encountering or will encounter. Therefore, the materials that they put in this book are meant to be useful for understanding the big picture as well as solving practical problems in an organized and efficient manner.

2. The materials are clearly organized by the functions in an engineering organization, so that the reader can quickly jump to the section that they want to read. Plus its wide coverage in the technical management issues, this book can even be used as a manual or a reference book for those who are currently in the technical management positions or aspiring to achieve them.

3. The book was written on Wiki in an inovative way. Is it a trend for collaborative book writing?

A new kind of person has evolved in Silicon Valley, and other high-tech hot-spots: the mid-to-high-level technical manager. These people have not learned their jobs by taking courses on it; they have learned their job by doing it. And being in Silicon Valley they have been able to network with kindred souls and discover a group identity.

This is a strange identity: a group consisting of anonymous individuals--a Wiki. These individuals are identified in the end matter, along with the acronyms used--but they cannot be identified in the main text. Perhaps this is typical of this new breed: they are anonymous.

This is in direct contrast with the style of two other popular writers on the subject: Michael Lopp (aka Rands) and Joel Spolsky, who are not even mentioned in the bibliography. They both have active blogs, their own books, and devoted readers (including me). Their style is highly personal; the style for this group is highly impersonal. The two varieties don't seem to mix.

These gentlemen identify themselves with the companies they work for, and their titles of VPE and CTO--not the software community at large. When discussing Open Source, for example, the main emphasis is on what Open Source can do for the company, not so much what the company can do for Open Source. This is true for Corporate Social Responsibility in general: not much is said about the subject, only a few sentences on personal integrity on page 9.

The chapter on Development Methodologies was good, but contained only two links. The Rational Unified Process got such short shrift it shocked me. UML was not mentioned at all. The short section on Personality Types, by contrast, has seven links.

If your goal is to become a VPE/CTO this book would be a good investment for you. If you are more interested in the sociology of software production, Rands would be a better choice.

Having worked with one of the authors and partnered with another, I know these authors are rock solid experts. This book's content sets the standard as the reference for any software engineering exec in describing how to build and lead successful teams, and how to dependably deliver quality and innovative software.