Top Engineering Leadership books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Engineering Leadership books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Engineering Leadership

Understanding the concepts of Engineering Leadership starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

The Engineering Executive's Primer: Impactful Technical Leadership

As an engineering manager, you almost always have someone in your company to turn to for advice: a peer on another team, your manager, or even the head of engineering. But who do you turn to if you're the head of engineering? Engineering executives have a challenging learning curve, and many folks excitedly start their first executive role only to leave frustrated within the first 18 months.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

There’s a saying that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Management is a key part of any organization, yet the discipline is often self-taught and unstructured. Getting to the good solutions for complex management challenges can make the difference between fulfillment and frustration for teams—and, ultimately, between the success and failure of companies.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Foundational Leadership Lessons: Navigating Challenges and Achieving Success in the Corporate World and Beyond

Unlock the secrets to successful leadership with Foundational Leadership Lessons—a comprehensive guide crafted by Jordan Sterling, a seasoned executive who rose from humble beginnings on a rural farm to the C-suite of multi-billion-dollar global companies. Whether you’re just starting your career or are an experienced leader looking to refine your skills, this book offers invaluable insights d…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track

At most technology companies, you'll reach Senior software engineer, the career level for software engineers, in five to eight years. At the career level, your company's career ladder won't require that you work towards the next promotion; being promoted further is an exception rather than expected. This is also when many engineers are first given an opportunity to move into engineering manage…

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Job Shop Lean: An Industrial Engineering Approach to Implementing Lean in High-Mix Low-Volume Production Systems

In the 1950’s, the design and implementation of the Toyota Production System (TPS) within Toyota had begun. In the 1960’s, Group Technology (GT) and Cellular Manufacturing (CM) were used by Serck Audco Valves, a high-mix low-volume (HMLV) manufacturer in the United Kingdom, to guide enterprise-wide transformation. In 1996, the publication of the book Lean Thinking introduced the entire world t…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager

Read hilarious stories with serious lessons that Michael Lopp extracts from his varied and sometimes bizarre experiences as a manager at Apple, Pinterest, Palantir, Netscape, Symantec, Slack, and Borland. Many of the stories first appeared in primitive form in Lopp’s perennially popular blog, Rands in Repose. The Third Edition of Managing Humans contains a whole new season of episodes from the…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Additional Engineering Leadership Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Engineering Leadership, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

High output management

The essential skill of creating and maintaining new businesses—the art of the entrepreneur—can be summed up in a single word: managing. Born of Grove’s experiences at one of America’s leading technology companies (as CEO and employee number three at Intel), High Output Management is equally appropriate for sales managers, accountants, consultants, and teachers, as well as CEOs and startup foun…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

This list is curated by MentorCruise and can include Amazon affiliate links. Have any other suggestions? Add here.

Augment your Engineering Leadership books

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👋 Hi! I’m Kuai, currently a Director of Engineering at a Fintech unicorn. With experience at Two Sigma, Google, and Citadel, I have a decade-long track record in tech and finance. I mentor both software engineers and managers, helping them navigate and succeed in their engineering careers. My mentees have …

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Vikas is an accomplished engineering leader with 20+ years of experience, he has a proven track record of success in multiple leadership roles across startups and large organizations (Facebook, Amazon, Mastercard). Throughout his career, Vikas developed a deep understanding of the technical aspects of engineering, coupled with strong business acumen …

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Hi there! My name is Sebastiano, and I'm an experienced engineering leader with a passion for helping others grow in their careers. I'm currently an Engineering leader at Meta, I've previously served as a Director of Engineering at Upwork and held leadership roles at companies such as Pinterest, PayPal, Snap, …

$110 / month


As a certified instructor (AEVO, IHK), State Certified Engineer in Media Technology, and tech leader with 25 years of experience, I mentor aspiring and established tech leaders to grow with purpose, structure, and real-world impact.

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I'm currently the leader of a mid-sized multi-disciplinary engineering team at a B2B software company. We build a platform for collecting spatial analytics from our customers' VR and AR applications and helping them draw insights from their participants' behaviour to improve their products. My career has spanned gaming (web, mobile, …

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I am a seasoned CTO with more than a decade of experience. But I am also a passionate developer and architect with even more years of experience. I am tech savvy and have an extensive software engineering background ranging from early stage start-ups to scale-ups with many teams in parallel. …

$240 / month

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  • "Naz is an amazing person and a wonderful mentor. She is supportive and knowledgeable with extensive practical experience. Having been a manager at Netflix, she also knows a ton about working with teams at scale. Highly recommended."

  • "Brandon has been supporting me with a software engineering job hunt and has provided amazing value with his industry knowledge, tips unique to my situation and support as I prepared for my interviews and applications."

  • "Sandrina helped me improve as an engineer. Looking back, I took a huge step, beyond my expectations."