Book Being Geek

I’ve finished reading this book, Being Geek, by Michael Lopp, an experienced engineering manager from Silicon Valley. And recommend it…

It’s a book about geeks professionalism, career. I liked the way the author exposes his ideas, he’s clear and pragmatic. Right in the second chapter there are these three questions I think it’s worth pointing out:

  • Are you actively defining the technical direction for your product?
  • Do you understand what you need to do in order to grow?
  • Are you hitting your dates? Are you meeting your commitments? Are you doing what you say you’re going to do?

That’s it! That’s what you need to ask yourself every day. Those answers will make you realize if this job is being useful for you to archive your professional goal in your life.

Later in the book he talks about task management, to-do lists and so on. And a very interesting one he calls “The Trickle List”. This is not a simple to-do list for that day. It’s a list of tasks you do every day with a bigger goal in mind, in the future. If you want to be a better engineer, every day you may want to learn something, improve on something, read something. I suddenly realized I was missing this list…

Well, I liked the book. I was not very excited reading the first chapters. But as I continued reading it just got better and better. The author writes comfortably about our career, being an engineer or a manager. The book is full of good advices based on experience. Hiring process, remote working, giving presentations, etc.