Books for software engineers and managers

Books / Product Manager

Product Manager Books

Successful Product Managers build momentum for the team and business. This job requires collaboration, compromise, and creativity. These books will help you get the most out of your engineering partnerships, improving team alignment around customer value and business impact.

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The Cold Start Problem
The Cold Start Problem

Driving growth with network effects

Good Strategy/Bad Strategy
8
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy

Conceptual and tactical advice for developing strategies that work

Working Backwards
8
Working Backwards

How Amazon works from the inside

Ask Your Developer
Ask Your Developer

How one world class software company leverages developers to drive business success

On Strategy
6
On Strategy

The key components of strategy and how to differentiate a management technique from strategy

Extreme Programming Explained
Extreme Programming Explained

Principles and practices of agile development

100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People
5
100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People

Collection of insights from human research

High Growth Handbook
7
High Growth Handbook

Interviews with startup founders, CEOs, and other executives discussing high growth

The Unicorn Project
The Unicorn Project

A story about rebellion against bureaucracy and corporate politics to delivery customer results

Ask Me This Instead
8
Ask Me This Instead

How to interview the company, not just having them interview you

Building Platforms and Multi-sided Marketplaces
Building Platforms and Multi-sided Marketplaces

How platforms and two-sided marketplaces like Airbnb and Lyft are built

The Elements of Scrum
6
The Elements of Scrum

Introduction to the mechanics of agile development

Only the Paranoid Survive
7
Only the Paranoid Survive

Recognizing and leading companies through strategic inflection points

Making Work Visible
Making Work Visible

Fantastic description of using kanban boards to improve software delivery

When Coffee & Kale Compete
7
When Coffee & Kale Compete

Solving customer problems not building features

Get Together
6
Get Together

Growing offline and online communities

How Google Works
How Google Works

Practical advice on product strategy and people management

Never Split the Difference
Never Split the Difference

Practical guide to everyday negotiations

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
8
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

The guide to beautiful and useful graphics

The Long Tail
6
The Long Tail

The end of monopoly hits and rise of niches

20 YC Lessons
8
20 YC Lessons

Presentation Notes from YCombinator’s Startup School

Traction
6
Traction

Broad introduction to 19 channels for gaining traction

The Design of Everyday Things
6
The Design of Everyday Things

Why products look the way they do, for better and worse

On Writing Well
On Writing Well

The practical guide to non-fiction writing

Designing for Behavior Change
7
Designing for Behavior Change

Applying behavior change science to software design and development

Slack
8
Slack

The counterpoint to efficiency in software engineering teams

Outcomes Over Output
8
Outcomes Over Output

An introduction to outcomes-based thinking and planning

Strategy Rules
8
Strategy Rules

An insightful read that’s part history, part business, part technology

Persuasive Copywriting
8
Persuasive Copywriting

Practical copywriting tips highly applicable to recruiting and product development

Lovability
3
Lovability

Introduction to a complete product experience mindset

The Mythical Man Month
The Mythical Man Month

The origin of Brooks’s Law and look into the counterintuitive world of software engineering management

Peopleware
Peopleware

A holistic and people-first view of software engineering management

The Lean Startup
The Lean Startup

Exploring and implementing the Build-Measure-Learn model

The Hard Thing About Hard Things
The Hard Thing About Hard Things

The no-nonsense book about engineering and startup leadership