Skills to grow from a solo coder into a productive member of a software development team, with seasoned advice on everything from refactoring to acing an interview. In Skills of a Successful Software Engineer you will learn: The skills you need to succeed on a software development team Best practices for writing maintainable code Testing and commenting code for others to read and use Refactoring code you didn’t write What to expect from a technical interview process How to be a tech leader Getting around gatekeeping in the tech community Skills of a Successful Software Engineer is a best practices guide for succeeding on a software development team. The book reveals how to optimize both your code and your career, from achieving a good work-life balance to writing the kind of bug-free code delivered by pros. You’ll master essential skills that you might not have learned as a solo coder, including meaningful code commenting, unit testing, and using refactoring to speed up feature delivery. Timeless advice on acing interviews and setting yourself up for leadership will help you throughout your career. Crack open this one-of-a-kind guide, and you’ll soon be working in the professional manner that software managers expect. About the technology Success as a software engineer requires technical knowledge, flexibility, and a lot of persistence. Knowing how to work effectively with other developers can be the difference between a fulfilling career and getting stuck in a life-sucking rut. This brilliant book guides you through the essential skills you need to survive and thrive on a software engineering team. About the book Skills of a Successful Software Engineer presents techniques for working on software projects collaboratively. In it, you’ll build technical skills, such as writing simple code, effective testing, and refactoring, that are essential to creating software on a team. You’ll also explore soft skills like how to keep your knowledge up to date, interacting with your team leader, and even how to get a job you’ll love. What's inside Best practices for writing and documenting maintainable code Testing and refactoring code you didn’t write What to expect in a technical interview How to thrive on a development team About the reader For working and aspiring software engineers. About the author Fernando Doglio has twenty years of experience in the software industry, where he has worked on everything from web development to big data. Table of Contents 1 Becoming a successful software engineer 2 Writing code everyone can read 3 Unit testing: delivering code that works 4 Refactoring existing code (or Refactoring doesn’t mean rewriting code) 5 Tackling the personal side of coding 6 Interviewing for your place on the team 7 Working as part of a team 8 Understanding team leadership

Ship It! is a collection of tips that show the tools andtechniques a successful project team has to use, and how to use themwell. You'll get quick, easy-to-follow advice on modernpractices: which to use, and when they should be applied. This bookavoids current fashion trends and marketing hype; instead, readersfind page after page of solid advice, all tried and tested in thereal world. Aimed at beginning to intermediate programmers, Ship It! will show you: Which tools help, and which don't How to keep a project moving Approaches to scheduling that work How to build developers as well as product What's normal on a project, and what's not How to manage managers, end-users and sponsors Danger signs and how to fix them Few of the ideas presented here are controversial or extreme; most experiencedprogrammers will agree that this stuff works. Yet 50 to 70 percent of allproject teams in the U.S. aren't able to use even these simple, well-acceptedpractices effectively. This book will help you get started. Ship It! begins by introducing the common technicalinfrastructure that every project needs to get the job done. Readerscan choose from a variety of recommended technologies according totheir skills and budgets. The next sections outline the necessarysteps to get software out the door reliably, using well-accepted,easy-to-adopt, best-of-breed practices that really work. Finally, and most importantly, Ship It! presents commonproblems that teams face, then offers real-world advice on how tosolve them.

"Outside-in thinking complements any approach your teams may be taking to the actual implementation of software, but it changes how you measure success. A successful outside-in team does a lot of learning and not much speculation." —Tom Poppendieck Build Software That Delivers Maximum Business Value to Every Key Stakeholder Imagine your ideal development project. It will deliver exactly what your clients need. It will achieve broad, rapid, enthusiastic adoption. And it will be designed and built by a productive, high-morale team of expert software professionals. Using this book's breakthrough "outside-in" approach to software development, your next project can be that ideal project. In Outside-in Software Development, two of IBM's most respected software leaders, Carl Kessler and John Sweitzer, show you how to identify the stakeholders who'll determine your project's real value, shape every decision around their real needs, and deliver software that achieves broad, rapid, enthusiastic adoption. The authors present an end-to-end framework and practical implementation techniques any development team can quickly benefit from, regardless of project type or scope. Using their proven approach, you can improve the effectiveness of every client conversation, define priorities with greater visibility and clarity, and make sure all your code delivers maximum business value. Coverage includes Understanding your stakeholders and the organizational and business context they operate in Clarifying the short- and long-term stakeholder goals your project will satisfy More effectively mapping project expectations to outcomes Building more "consumable" software: systems that are easier to deploy, use, and support Continuously enhancing alignment with stakeholder goals Helping stakeholders manage ongoing change long after you've delivered your product Mastering the leadership techniques needed to drive outside-in development

Software and project management consultant Murray Cantor discusses how to be a good manager and how to build a competitive software team. The text is intended to be accessible to managers with little software background as well as those with extensive experience. A sampling of topics includes software architecture, developing products, improving the efficiency of the organization, the Rational Unified Process, and team leadership. c. Book News Inc.

Software startups make global headlines every day. As technology companies succeed and grow, so do their engineering departments. In your career, you'll may suddenly get the opportunity to lead teams: to become a manager. But this is often uncharted territory. How can you decide whether this career move is right for you? And if you do, what do you need to learn to succeed? Where do you start? How do you know that you're doing it right? What does "it" even mean? And isn't management a dirty word? This book will share the secrets you need to know to manage engineers successfully. Going from engineer to manager doesn't have to be intimidating. Engineers can be managers, and fantastic ones at that. Cast aside the rhetoric and focus on practical, hands-on techniques and tools. You'll become an effective and supportive team leader that your staff will look up to. Start with your transition to being a manager and see how that compares to being an engineer. Learn how to better organize information, feel productive, and delegate, but not micromanage. Discover how to manage your own boss, hire and fire, do performance and salary reviews, and build a great team. You'll also learn the psychology: how to ship while keeping staff happy, coach and mentor, deal with deadline pressure, handle sensitive information, and navigate workplace politics. Consider your whole department. How can you work with other teams to ensure best practice? How do you help form guilds and committees and communicate effectively? How can you create career tracks for individual contributors and managers? How can you support flexible and remote working? How can you improve diversity in the industry through your own actions? This book will show you how. Great managers can make the world a better place. Join us.

Rev. ed. of: Cultivating successful software development. c1997.

You need to get value from your software project. You need it "free, now, and perfect." We can't get you there, but we can help you get to "cheaper, sooner, and better." This book leads you from the desire for value down to the specific activities that help good Agile projects deliver better software sooner, and at a lower cost. Using simple sketches and a few words, the author invites you to follow his path of learning and understanding from a half century of software development and from his engagement with Agile methods from their very beginning. The book describes software development, starting from our natural desire to get something of value. Each topic is described with a picture and a few paragraphs. You're invited to think about each topic; to take it in. You'll think about how each step into the process leads to the next. You'll begin to see why Agile methods ask for what they do, and you'll learn why a shallow implementation of Agile can lead to only limited improvement. This is not a detailed map, nor a step-by-step set of instructions for building the perfect project. There is no map or instructions that will do that for you. You need to build your own project, making it a bit more perfect every day. To do that effectively, you need to build up an understanding of the whole process. This book points out the milestones on your journey of understanding the nature of software development done well. It takes you to a location, describes it briefly, and leaves you to explore and fill in your own understanding. What You Need: You'll need your Standard Issue Brain, a bit of curiosity, and a desire to build your own understanding rather than have someone else's detailed ideas poured into your head.