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A must read for leaders in tech.Heidi Leatherby

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An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

by Will Larson (Author)

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A human-centric guide to solving complex problems in engineering management, from sizing teams to handling technical debt.

There’s a saying that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Management is a key part of any organization, yet the discipline is often self-taught and unstructured. Getting to the good solutions for complex management challenges can make the difference between fulfillment and frustration for teams—and, ultimately, between the success and failure of companies.

Will Larson’s An Elegant Puzzle focuses on the particular challenges of engineering management—from sizing teams to handling technical debt to performing succession planning—and provides a path to the good solutions. Drawing from his experience at Digg, Uber, and Stripe, Larson has developed a thoughtful approach to engineering management for leaders of all levels at companies of all sizes. An Elegant Puzzle balances structured principles and human-centric thinking to help any leader create more effective and rewarding organizations for engineers to thrive in.

ISBN-10

1732265186
ISBN-13

978-1732265189
Publisher

Stripe Press
Publication date

May 20, 2019
Language

English
Dimensions

6 x 1.25 x 9 inches
Print length

288 pages
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Organizational design gets the right people in the right places, empowers them to make decisions, and then holds them accountable for their results.
Highlighted by 2,336 Kindle readers
An important property of teams is that they abstract the complexities of the individuals that compose them. Teams with fewer than four individuals are a sufficiently leaky abstraction that they function indistinguishably from individuals.
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A team is innovating when their technical debt is sustainably low, morale is high, and the majority of work is satisfying new user needs.
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From the Publisher

will larson, business culture, business growth, engineering management, management philosophy


'A masterful study of engineering management' "An Elegant Puzzle is a masterful study of the challenges and demands of the discipline of engineering management viewed through the prism of systems thinking. Readers can expect an actionable template for addressing complex problems with finesse, creativity and fairness." —Cindy Sridharan, Distributed Systems Engineer and author of Distributed Systems Observability	'Captures the timeless spirit of creative problem-solving' "Software engineering is evolving faster than ever before. What principles are durable in a time of so much change and what are the contemporary pain points that may change in the future but cannot be ignored today? In An Elegant Puzzle, Will Larson captures the timeless spirit of creative problem-solving that draws us to software engineering while also providing concrete strategies for modern organizations." —Jeffrey Meyerson, Host of Software Engineering Daily	'An Elegant Puzzle will become your favorite go-to resource' "Engineering Managers can often feel like they are struggling to keep their head above the water. Our technical training is missing the frameworks and tools needed to build healthy and productive teams. The insights and step-by-step approach covered in An Elegant Puzzle will become your favorite go-to resource." —Oren Ellenbogen, VP Engineering at Forter, Curator of Software Lead Weekly newsletter

About the author

Will Larson has been an engineering leader and software engineer at technology companies of many shapes and sizes, including Yahoo!, Digg, SocialCode, Uber, and, since 2016, Stripe.

He grew up in North Carolina, studied Computer Science at Centre College in Kentucky, spent a year in Japan for the JET Program teaching English, and has been living in San Francisco since 2009.

An Elegant Puzzle draws from the writing in his blog, Irrational Exuberance!, that he has been updating since graduating from college. It is currently, and will always be, a work in progress.

An introduction from Will Larson

Some people go into management out of a desire to be of service. Others become managers in a cynical pact, exchanging excitement in their current role for the prospect of continued salary bumps and promotions. There are even folks who initially go into management because they’re entirely fed up with their own manager and are convinced that they could do better.

I won’t say which of those, if any, describes me.

Regardless of what motivation first brings you into management, it can feel as if you’ve entered a troubled profession. Skilled practitioners are scarce, and only the exceptional company is willing to invest in growing its managers.

As I’ve become more experienced, my appreciation for management, and engineering management in particular, has grown, and I’ve come to view the field as a series of elegant, rewarding, and important puzzles. This book is a collection of those puzzles, which I’ve had the good fortune to struggle with and learn from.

If you finish the entire book, you won’t walk into your office the next day as a perfect manager (I remain grateful for the days I walk into the office feeling like a marginally competent one), but I hope that it’ll stimulate questions about how you’re approaching management, provide a few new approaches for you to experiment with, and help you take a few steps further down the path of engineering management.

stripe press, innovation, new ideas, business, creative management

About the publisher

Stripe Press publishes books about economic and technological advancement. Stripe partners with hundreds of thousands of the world’s most innovative businesses—organizations that will shape the world of tomorrow. These businesses are the result of many different inputs. Perhaps the most important ingredient is "ideas." Stripe Press highlights ideas that we think can be broadly useful. Some books contain entirely new material, some are collections of existing work reimagined, and others are republications of previous works that have remained relevant over time or have renewed relevance today.

Other titles by Stripe Press:

High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil
The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop
Stubborn Attachments by Tyler Cowen
Revolt of the Public by Martin Gurri
Get Together by Bailey Richardson, Kevin Huynh, and Kai Elmer Sotto
The Making of Prince of Persia by Jordan Mechner
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering by Richard W. Hamming
Working in Public by Nadia Eghbal

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Software engineering is evolving faster than ever before. What principles are durable in a time of so much change and what are the contemporary pain points that may change in the future but cannot be ignored today? In An Elegant Puzzle, Will Larson captures the timeless spirit of creative problem-solving that draws us to software engineering while also providing concrete strategies for modern organizations.” --Jeffrey Meyerson, Host of Software Engineering Daily

“An Elegant Puzzle is a masterful study of the challenges and demands of the discipline of engineering management viewed through the prism of systems thinking. Readers can expect an actionable template for addressing complex problems with finesse, creativity and fairness.” --Cindy Sridharan, Distributed Systems Engineer and author of Distributed Systems Observability

“Engineering Managers can often feel like they are struggling to keep their head above the water. Our technical training is missing the frameworks and tools needed to build healthy and productive teams. The insights and step-by-step approach covered in An Elegant Puzzle will become your favorite go-to resource.” --Oren Ellenbogen, VP Engineering at Forter, Curator of Software Lead Weekly newsletter

About the Author

Will Larson has been an engineering leader and software engineer at technology companies of many shapes and sizes, including Yahoo!, Digg, SocialCode, Uber, and Stripe. He grew up in North Carolina, studied computer science at Centre College in Kentucky, and spent a year in Japan teaching English through the JET Programme. An Elegant Puzzle draws from the writing in his blog, Irrational Exuberance!, which he has been updating since graduating from college. It is currently, and will always be, a work in progress. Larson lives in San Francisco.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Stripe Press (May 20, 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1732265186
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1732265189
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.25 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #11,857 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #12 in Computers & Technology Industry
- #48 in Decision-Making & Problem Solving
- #206 in Leadership & Motivation

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Will Larson

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Will Larson has been an engineering leader and software engineer at technology companies of many shapes and sizes including Calm, Stripe, and Uber. He grew up in North Carolina, studied Computer Science at Centre College in Kentucky, spent a year in Japan on the JET Program teaching English, and has been living in San Francisco since 2009. He writes frequently on his blog, Irrational Exuberance, at lethain.com.

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Amazon Customer

Quick delivery.

Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2024

Verified Purchase

The order was sent promptly and the package is in good condition. The condition of the book is good.

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Amazon Customer

Plenty of information in poor form

Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2023

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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

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Gergely Orosz

An overdue book on software engineering, not just for leads and managers

Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2019

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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.

16 people found this helpful

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Simon NINON

Best management book I have read so far

Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2020

Verified Purchase

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.

4 people found this helpful

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J. Pruetting

Hardcover quality went way down

Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2022

Verified Purchase

I've ordered the hardcover version of this book twice, once in 2019 and once in 2022. The older book from 2019 looks and feels like a really high quality book; it's beautiful. The book from 2022 looks like a cheap copy. It went from having a smooth, subtle crosshatch texture with off-white and subdued black on the cover to a rough texture with stark white and pure black. The pages also feel thinner and cheaper as well.

7 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Great, accessible content.

Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

I recently completed a read of this on my Kindle, and promptly bought three physical copies to share with other leaders within my workplace. Page for page, this is the best contemporary IT management book I've read in the past year. That the author (as of this review) works at Stripe, and that the company saw fit to publish this book, is one of the best bits of endorsements for a company I've encountered in quite a while.

The author and their editor have done a superb job of distilling a significant amount of value into a brief and accessible text. Included within are recommendations on everything from organizational design, tools to improve the act of engineering management, higher-level approaches to tackling common problems within the field, and specific methods by which you can shape an organizational culture. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover more than a token acknowledgement of the importance of creating and fostering a diverse workforce, something too easily overlooked in the tech industry. Finally, there are a wealth of additional book recommendations (thoughtfully re-listed in the appendix) to further your own learning.

I have worked in management roles within the tech startup scene and in more traditional enterprise IT environments. Of the recommendations found within this book that I've personally implemented or seen in my career, I agree with the author's perspective on their value. Of the ones I haven't, this gave me the vocabulary and a framework to explain how they can address problems of which my current workplace is suffering. I look forward to trying them out.

9 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Bom conteúdo

Reviewed in Brazil on January 7, 2024

Verified Purchase

Informações atualizadas, recomendo a leitura

One person found this helpful

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Tamil Selvan

Excellent Book

Reviewed in India on April 26, 2022

Verified Purchase

Must read for managers who wanna shift from bringing problem to the table to solving them. Because this book builds awareness around every EMs problems in such a simple language. Liked it so much

Kindle Customer

A must read for new engineering managers

Reviewed in the Netherlands on February 8, 2021

Verified Purchase

The book is an extensive, hands-on collection of practices for engineering managers at different stages of their career and their toolkit evolving with them as time goes by. It also gives a sense of the various constraints that apply at different organization sizes and how to work with (or around) them.

Eryx

Great book for developing managers

Reviewed in Mexico on December 16, 2019

Verified Purchase

Great book for developing managers.

berlin-mitte

Interesting but disappointing

Reviewed in Germany on August 19, 2020

Verified Purchase

When I started reading this book I felt delighted and on the path to somewhere good. I then started noticing that the info graphics took more energy to process than they provided value for, then the duplication in content, and the lack of proper editing: it started to feel like a lack of respect towards the reader and like art out of place.
I noticed I had wanted this book to be great and to lead me and that I had found something shiny, with questionable messages at times, with lose pieces glued together, instead. If you turn your blog into a book, you want to add a plot, not just a table of contents. Otherwise it's a blog on paper disguised as a book.
I consider it sad that Will considers migrations "the sole scalable fix to tech debt": it is not a fix but rather selling "giving up on it" for a fix — very convenient for management — while an actual fix needs change in culture on a non-technical level. What Will says regarding "work the policy, not the exceptions" fails to recognize that people vary greatly in needs.
Overall, the book was interesting to read but I sure hope that future managers will not copy from Will, blindly.

5 people found this helpful

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'A masterful study of engineering management'

'Captures the timeless spirit of creative problem-solving'

'An Elegant Puzzle will become your favorite go-to resource'

About the author

An introduction from Will Larson

About the publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

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A must read for leaders in tech.

About the author

Will Larson

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An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

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From the Publisher

'A masterful study of engineering management'

'Captures the timeless spirit of creative problem-solving'

'An Elegant Puzzle will become your favorite go-to resource'

About the author

An introduction from Will Larson

About the publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

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Videos for this product

A must read for leaders in tech.

About the author

Will Larson

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