Full Title: The Coding Career Handbook. Guides, Principles, Strategies, and Tactics – from Code Newbie to Senior Dev
Author: [[Shawn Wang]]
[Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54375336-the-coding-career-handbook-guides-principles-strategies-and-tactics?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=vUApY1h0UM&rank=2)
[[sources/Book/The Coding Career Handbook|My literature notes]]
## Premise
This book presents a high-level overview of everything that a junior developer would need to know about beginning a career as a software developer. It goes from a discussion of specific specializations within development to careers that are tangential to development. It also includes a lot of advice that are applicable for anyone in tech.
I was personally not as interested in the developer-specific chapters because my own career is tangentially related, but I still found a lot of value in chapters that talked about building a career, learning in public, and personal knowledge management systems in particular.
## Structure
- Careers: Different stages in the career of a developer
- Principles: Learning in public and how to build a career
- Strategies: Which areas and technologies are more investing in
- Tactics: Practical guide to learning in public and building a portfolio
- Concepts: Extra principles to keep in mind
## Careers
- Different types of companies that you could work for (startups, agencies, big companies)
- Levels of coding:
![[coding career layers.png]] [^swyx]
Developer progression:
- Code newbies
- job hunt
- junior dev
- junior to senior
- senior dev
- beyond your coding career
Paths beyond development/coding
- Engineering management
- Product management (primary user advocate/domain knowledge expert)
- Developer Relations
- Developer Education: "DevRel on hard mode"
- Entrepreneur
### Developer relations
Developer relations should be as much advocating *for* users (being involved in product prioritization) as advocating *to* them (creating content).
Reads about Developer Relations:
- Kim Maida: [Building Developer Communities](https://www.ladybug.dev/)
- Keith Casey: [Developer Evangelism: The Whole Story](https://caseysoftware.com/blog/developer-evangelism-the-whole-story)
- Nader Dabit: [7 Tips for Breaking Into DevRel](https://dev.to/dabit3/7-tips-for-breaking-into-devrel-7jk)
- Emily Freeman: [Developer Relations:(More Than) The Art of Talking Good](https://emilyfreeman.io/blog/developer-relations-more-than-the-art-of-talking-good)
- [Get Together](https://www.people-and.com/get-together-book): a book and podcast about community builders, by community builders.
- The various DevRelCons and Summits around the world
## Principles
[^swyx]: Wang, S. (2020). _The coding career handbook: Guides, principles, strategies and tactics from code newbie to senior dev_. Shawn Swyx Wang. [[readwise/Books/The Coding Career Handbook|My highlights]]. [[sources/Book/The Coding Career Handbook|My literature notes]].