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.

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…

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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…

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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.

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The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

From mentoring interns to working with senior staff, you’ll get actionable advice for approaching various obstacles in your path. This book is ideal whether you’re a new manager, a mentor, or a more experienced leader looking for fresh advice. Pick up this book and learn how to become a better manager and leader in your organization.

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Small Acts of Leadership: 12 Intentional Behaviors That Lead to Big Impact

In business today, there is no offline and there is no downtime. Professionals are both exhausted and depleted. Being constantly tethered to our work through technology makes us overwhelmed and shortsighted, and deprives us of time for meaningful reflection or thoughtful connection to our professional communities, and often even to our own families. For us to thrive-not simply survive-in this …

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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…

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.

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

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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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Hi there! 👋 My name is Dan, and I'm a freelance software engineer, technology consultant, and coach/mentor based in Seattle, Washington, USA. I spent 15 years working as a professional software engineer (most of it for Amazon and AWS, up to the Principal / Staff level), then in 2022 I …

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Hello! I'm Rohit Garg, a seasoned engineering leader with over 12 years of experience in leading high-performing engineering teams, strategic planning, big data science & engineering, and AI/ML integration. Currently, I spearhead the data engineering efforts for AI Training Infrastructure & PyTorch at Meta, where I drive technical vision and …

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I am a technologist with over 13 years of cross-domain experience in various tech roles like Software Engineer, Technical Program/Product Manager, Solutions Architect, Data Analyst, and Network Engineer. My work experience spans across industries like Cloud, Security, Healthcare Tech, Legal Sales Tech, Networking, and, now Privacy at companies like AWS, …

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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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After 19+ years in video games (Relic Entertainment, DeNA, Gasket Games), e-commerce, and fintech, I’ve noticed that software engineers don’t get enough mentorship and guidance. We often go it alone or have managers who are excellent at building software but struggle with leading people. Over time, I saw that mentoring …

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