An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

I am new to EM and needed a primer. I appreciate how the author just dives right in! Everything is explained concisely and often visually. The book design is excellent for a quick reference. I would recommend this over many other management books I have ready lately.

There's a lot to admire in this book by Will Larson. It's clearly a labour of love but it covers so much of the same ground from so many angles it feels like it's sometimes battering you over the head with its opinions. Despite saying it's not a manual for the engineering manager - I would totally disagree. I think this is an excellent manual for the new or old engineering manager - a perfect resource for you to dip into when you are confronted with tricky situations. I would certainly lean on this and learn from Will's experience so long as you put the advice into his context. In the post-VC world we need to be a bit more human but there is still great value here.

An Elegant Puzzle is to date the most hands-on perspective on engineering management within a high-growth, tech-first organization, that I have read. It's a long overdue book for engineering managers and leads. I like how it takes an engineering-focused view on management, instead of taking a management-focused view on software engineering, that other books on this topic have.Having read many management and engineering management books, what set Will's book apart is it starts right where the others end. An Elegant Puzzle wastes no time - especially not in the beginning - on covering the generic manager's toolkit, such as 1:1s, giving feedback, team building, which many other books devote a good chunk of their content. Instead, it talks about the engineering pain points that come with a high-growth organization and team, once management fundamentals are in place. What to do when our systems are slowing us down, but we have too many migrations? What's a good way to pay down tech debt? How do we say no, when there is so much work, but not enough people? How do we grow seniority evenly across the team?The tone of the book is casual: it feels like we're sitting with Will, having coffee, while he talks about problems he's faced at different companies, systemic approaches he's seen work best, then giving examples of things that worked for him, in the past. I like how the book rarely presents "best" approaches, instead, Will shares what worked for him - with a healthy dose of systems thinking - and approaches he recommends to his peers and managers on his team.The book is a good read for product managers and engineers working at high-growth companies will find it a good read. Other disciplines working with engineering - such as recruiters or operations - can get more empathy towards engineering, when reading it. The head of product at a large startup recently told me how she was devouring over the book and a recruiting manager, who read the book, shared how he thought the book translates well to managing people in his field.

I bought this book without too many expectations: most management books are usually either poorly written, either full of banalities, either too abstract.However, this book is one of the rare excellent ones, and most probably a must-read for any manager (probably even outside tech).I'm a junior manager and I initially thought the book was not a good fit for me as I started to read the first chapter: this book is written by an upper-manager and talks about many problems related to upper-management that a junior manager does not encounter himself, especially in the first two chapters.However, I kept reading and it was the right thing to do: the book is incredibly complete and covers everything. Many points are actually relevant whether you are a junior manager or a more experienced one. For the other parts more related to upper-management (for example, restructuring a department), those are still very interesting and eye-opening to read for a junior manager: you get to better understand what your own manager is doing now, or what challenges he will face soon. It truly allows you to connect the dots and reflect more about your own company environment.Besides that, this book is very practical. It's very easy to understand each point and how to approach each problem. Of course, each company is different and you can't have a cooking-recipe that works everywhere: you still need to adapt based on your environment, but you are much clearer on how to do it, and what should you pay attention to. This is much better than most other books out there that focus on banalities everyone already knows, or only stick to an abstract level such that you don't know much more than when you started reading them.I can't recommend enough that book.

I appreciate Stripe as a company with quality product(s) and have enjoyed the Collison brothers' perspective on various topics from technology, finance, to philosophy and beyond. I decided to look into Stripe Press - intrigued by the themes they would cover and publish.This was the third book I read from the catalogue. It had good observations and beneficial advice. Unfortunately, the quality of the hardcover felt tainted because of typos (some examples attached by photos) and bad editing. There were similar issues in the first book I read, High Growth Handbook. Although I'm still looking forward to the rest of the catalogue, the avoidable mistakes discourage and rub away excitement.

Fantastic amount of insight in this book. Wonderful to be able to draw parallels between Will's experience and advice and practical applications in my current role.

I have a feeling this book is composition of author's articles which makes reading unpleasant. The content has great value and in most cases is targeted to middle managers