Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsModern hands-on manual for both the aspiring and existing technical leaders
Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2018
Becoming an effective leader — technical or not — requires making big lateral jumps in scope, type of work, and how you engage with your and surrounding teams. The sooner you realize that "what got you here won't help you there", the faster you can make a successful transition (or backtrack!) and less pain everyone will endure.
Camille provides a great, unvarnished and hands-on tour of her own career from an engineer to a tech lead, to manager (lead and manager are often confused and conflated, but are very different roles), to manager of managers (a MoM :)), to executive leader responsible for aligning product and technical execution. As you would expect, the story is a rollercoaster with many wins and just as many setbacks and lessons along the way. The good news is, we can all learn from Camille's experience without repeating all (or some, at least) the same mistakes.
The strength of this book is that it takes you all the way from engineer to CTO, with hands-on illustrations in major role and expectation (both the good and the bad) shifts along the way: we all know that Director or VP that clings on to writing code at a detriment to their team; a TL that hordes decision making; a MoM that lost touch with technical foundation of the product; etc. This book will help you avoid these traps, both in your own career and on your team.
In short, a modern hands-on manual for both the aspiring and existing technical leaders, and a sound time investment — read it.
