The Manager's Path

A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

By: Camille Fournier

Narrated by: Janet Metzger

Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Managing people is difficult wherever you work. But in the tech industry, where management is also a technical discipline, the learning curve can be brutal - especially when there are few tools, texts, and frameworks to help you. In this practical guide, author Camille Fournier (tech lead turned CTO) takes you through each stage in the journey from engineer to technical manager.

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. Listen to this audiobook and learn how to become a better manager and leader in your organization.

• Begin by exploring what you expect from a manager.
• Understand what it takes to be a good mentor, and a good tech lead.
• Learn how to manage individual members while remaining focused on the entire team.
• Understand how to manage yourself and avoid common pitfalls that challenge many leaders.
• And more...

©2017 Camille Fournier (P)2019 Tantor

One of the best books on engineering management

I am an experienced software engineer/tech-lead and in my humble opinion this book excels in providing essential guidance in a simple, well-structured and easy-to-comprehend way. I'm glad I had a chance to "read" it.

Surprisingly Relatable and Incredibly Useful

I feel like this book read my mind. Every chapter and every sentence I found relatable to my management role.
And it covers EVERYTHING that a manager goes through with relatable commentary and advice.
I recommended this book to other coworkers

A good, comprehensive book for tech mgrs

I wasn't expecting a lot from this book, but I found it to have solid advice for tech managers at all levels. It could have been more concise, and I'll have to listen to it again when I have time to take a few notes.

Extremely helpful

As a new manager, I’ve found value and strategies that I could adopt to get started. I’ve also understood why certain things happen and how to apply different processes to different situations. No one solution fits all, and that’s an important starting point for managers to be.

For anyone that wants to lead a technical team

Great book that encompasses strategies on leading a team and keeping in mind business objectives at different levels of the career ladder.

Great book for managers starting up

I enjoy listening to this book, essential because of the examples, the Ask the CTO topic that gives you a better understanding of the subject that was addressed earlier. If you are thinking of embrace a management path for your career you should definitely read this book, if you are already a senior manager, good knowledge don’t occupy space on your brain so you should read this book :).

Practical and grounded

This book offers very practical advice on how to move up the IT management ladder. it is like a personal coach or mentor for each stage - giving you the mental map on what's important for each stage.

Great for a someone who is new to management

Great tips for a new manager though some are common sense and others will come with enough experience if you've had competent managers in the past.

Good introduction to folks wanting to take on leadership roles

I loved how Camille took time to visit each level of leadership and management in a technology career ladder—especially the granularity of her tour (meaning she didn’t just jump from IC to management; she stopped to talk about mentoring and being a technical lead first, etc.).

I didn’t love that each stop on the path resulted in an unorganized splattering of every bit of advice she could think of for the specific role in question. Admittedly there’s good advice in every section, so I overall recommend reading the book. Just expect to not retain many of her points after a first pass.

just listen to the relevant parts

if you're already a manager, some of the things covered are just too basic.
i suggest to read up on the chapters that are relevant to your position or the one you aspire to