Lorded as "The" tech management book I was very pleased when my manager very kindly gifted me a copy, seeing that I was heading further down the management track. It covers every stage of tech management from being a manager of one, to a manager of managers, to CTO. This is absolutely a resource that I will be coming back to many times in the next few years.

During the earlier chapters there were things I thought I knew but hadn't thought about before in such concrete terms. It's always good to revisit how to manage your manager! Despite skimming large swathes of the later chapters, there were still really insightful snippets.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone technical looking to move onto the managers track, not that you need my commendation on top of all the others.

Quotes

If a tech lead is not managing directly, they are still expected to provide mentorship and guidance to the other members of the team. [...] they are scaling themselves by delegating work effectively without micromanaging. p28

If you want autonomy over your work, freedom to make choices, you must gain mastery over your time and how you use it. p31

And yet how often is email really urgent? Email is probably the worst vehicle for conveying urgent, time-sensitive information. It feels urgent, but it isn't. [...] We've moved a lot of communication in the modern tech workplace out of email into [slack]. p104

As a manager of multiple teams, you can win back a lot of time by pushing an efficient meetings culture down to your teams. Hold people accountable to prepare in whatever way makes sense. p105

As you navigate your new obligations, start to ask yourself: How important is the thing I'm doing? Does it seem important because i is urgent? How much time have I spent this week on urgent things? Have I managed to carve out enough time for things that are not urgent. p106

Whether you have experienced managers or first-timers reporting to you, there is one universal goal for these relationships: they should make your life easier. p131

Managers who don't stay technical enough sometimes find themselves in the bad habit of acting as a go-between for senior management and their teams. Instead of filtering requests, they relay them to the team and then relay team's responses back up to management. This is not a value-add role. p155

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system. p197