Soft Skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual

by John Sonmez

Summary

"Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual" is a unique guide, offering techniques and practices for a more satisfying life as a professional software developer. In it, developer and life coach John Sonmez addresses a wide range of important "soft" topics, from career and productivity to personal finance and investing, and even fitness and relationships, all from a developer-centric viewpoint.

Forewords by Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) and Scott Hanselman.

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

About the Book

For most software developers, coding is the fun part. The hard bits are dealing with clients, peers, and managers, staying productive, achieving financial security, keeping yourself in shape, and finding true love. This book is here to help.

"Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual" is a guide to a well-rounded, satisfying life as a technology professional. In it, developer and life coach John Sonmez offers advice to developers on important "soft" subjects like career and productivity, personal finance and investing, and even fitness and relationships. Arranged as a collection of 71 short chapters, this fun-to-read book invites you to dip in wherever you like. A Taking Action section at the end of each chapter shows you how to get quick results. Soft Skills will help make you a better programmer, a more valuable employee, and a happier, healthier person.

What's InsideBoost your career by building a personal brandJohn's secret ten-step process for learning quicklyFitness advice to turn your geekiness to your advantageUnique strategies for investment and early retirement

About the Author

John Sonmez is a developer, teacher, and life coach who helps technical professionals boost their careers and live a more fulfilled life.

Table of ContentsWhy this book is unlike any book you've ever readSECTION 1: CAREERGetting started with a "BANG!": Don't do what everyone else doesThinking about the future: What are your goals?People skills: You need them more than you thinkHacking the interviewEmployment options: Enumerate your choicesWhat kind of software developer are you?Not all companies are equalClimbing the corporate ladderBeing a professionalFreedom: How to quit your jobFreelancing: Going out on your ownCreating your first productDo you want to start a startup?Working remotely survival strategiesFake it till you make itResumes are BORING Let's fix thatDon't get religious about technologySECTION 2: MARKETING YOURSELFMarketing basics for code monkeysBuilding a brand that gets you noticedCreating a wildly successful blogYour primary goal: Add value to others#UsingSocialNetworksSpeaking, presenting, and training: Speak geekWriting books and articles that attract a followingDon't be afraid to look like an idiotSECTION 3: LEARNINGLearning how to learn: How to teach yourselfMy 10-step processSteps 1-6: Do these onceSteps 7-10: Repeat theseLooking for mentors: Finding your YodaTaking on an apprentice: Being YodaTeaching: Learn you want? Teach you must.Do you need a degree or can you "wing it?"Finding gaps in your knowledgeSECTION 4: PRODUCTIVITYIt all starts with focusMy personal productivity planPomodoro TechniqueMy quota system: How I get way more done than I shouldHolding yourself accountableMultitasking dos and don'tsBurnout: I've got the cure!How you're wasting your timeThe importance of having a routineDeveloping habits: Brushing your codeBreaking things down: How to eat an elephantThe value of hard work and why you keep avoiding itAny action is better than no actionSECTION 5: FINANCIALWhat are you going to do with your paycheck?How to negotiate your salaryOptions: Where all the fun isBits and bytes of real estate investingDo you really understand your retirement plan?The danger of debt: SSDs are expensiveBonus: How I retired at 33SECTION 6: FITNESSWhy you need to hack your healthSetting your fitness criteriaThermodynamics, calories, and youMotivation: Getting your butt out of the chairHow to gain muscle: Nerds can have bulging bicepsHow to get hash-table absStarting RunningProgram.exeStanding desks and other hacksTech gear for fitness: Geeking outSECTION 7: SPIRITHow the mind influences the bodyHaving the right mental attitude: RebootingBuilding a positive self-image: Programming your brainLove and relationships: Computers can't hold your handMy personal success book listFacing failure head-onParting words"

Genres: Programming, Technology, Computer Science, Nonfiction, Self Help, Software, Business

470 pages, Paperback

Published January 6, 2015

Reviews

[Mateusz Dymczyk · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately don't really remember who recommended me this book because I should never listen to that source again. After checking some reviews I decided to give it a try as part of my free audible trial and I must say that was 13 hours of my life wasted. Good thing I listened to most of it while coding or doing some other things. Still could have listened to some podcasts or other books.

John is trying to (and is doing a good job at it) be pragmatic and not BS you, it's hard to argue with most of the stuff written in this book, also. Unfortunately that's because everything in it is so basic. You know what they say, if you don't want anyone question what you say make it simple or confusing enough.

I'm not sure who's the target for this book - people who have their acts together definitely don't need it. On the other hand the people who make all the mistakes John mentions in the book probably won't find/read this book.

[awwsalah · Rating 5 out of 5]

well, it really helpful book, especially if you're new to programming, everything you need to know about programming tips and advice.

[Aurelian · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.3/5

Nope. No. Don't. I just skimmed through as reading everything would have been a complete waste of time. Really, there wasn't anything useful.

I should have known, a book combining 5-6 distinct topics such as career, productivity, finances, love(?!?), health will end up not covering actually anything. Wait, did it had anything on diets?

Favorite quote:

> If you want to be more productive, you need to get more work done faster. Now, being productive doesn't guarantee you'll be effective.

So yeah.

[Tim O'Hearn · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ambitious project that falls short. I found the first 200 pages to be helpful. In fact, they were a great source of inspiration. However, as an engineer who is just about to enter the workforce full time, there are certain parts of the book where it is clear that the author is stretching himself too thin while trying to hit his content quotas.

The resume writing section is decent food for thought but horrible advice. I've spent a lot of time lurking on LinkedIn and reviewing my peers' resumes, and it is obvious when someone has utilized their school's career services or a "professional resume writer" to write their LinkedIn bio or revamp their resume content. When it isn't the prospective employee's own work, it typically doesn't match their professional identity (or lack thereof) at all. It makes the person seem fake or, worse, manufactured. The reason I'd advocate for the opposite-a neurotic commitment to one's own resume-is that this will require critical assessment of each line item and will facilitate memorization which, if not done, can lead to a blow up during an interview. Drastically diverging from the typical CareerCup or other commonly accepted resume format is another terrible idea, unless you're a designer. The reasons why are often covered in interviews with high-profile professionals on finance and CS forums.

The financial section is the worst part of the book. I admit that there is some sound advice. I agree with researching salary ranges and the how the author proposes salary negotiations, though I've never done it myself. Where it falls apart is in the options section. He is suggesting you fool around with options as a form of income, and, not only that, but dives right into some rather complex strategies. The math isn't nearly as simple as he'd have you believe. And, if the profits really were that consistent, I'm pretty sure you'd have already seen this advice on Reddit or one of the well-known personal finance blogs. It's not in any way passive income. This advice is given at the cost of glossing over Roth and traditional IRAs as if they are just for those who are self-employed.

I want to say that the real-estate advice is contrived, but it's really not, because the author actually achieved a level of success. Rather, it's overly simplified. The problem is that he touts his accomplishments and gives a super-high-level overview of how profitable it is, and then doesn't spend enough time talking about the difficulties. His beginner advice is essentially "Hey, just buy a $100,000 house with 10% down and let the rent payments pay your mortgage! Free money!" Then he talks about moving to NYC or San Francisco where you can apparently afford to live frugally and maximize your paycheck. How much does an apartment cost to buy in NYC or San Francisco? The advice is nonsensical for expensive areas, where failing to secure a tenant using the leverage he's suggesting will lead to bankruptcy. However, I can imagine it working really well for someone making a big-boy developer salary in the middle of nowhere, like when the author lived in Boise, Idaho. Managing properties isn't easy either, and hiring a property management company really bites into the bottom line.

The "you might already know..." financial sections that were relegated to the appendix were concise. Though the author covers debt, assets and liabilities, etc, I think there is a lot more to be said about credit cards and the benefits of using one, building credit, etc. Again, the options trading aspect was just completely out of place. Also, I feel the financial section misleadingly makes the long-term stock market out to be an overall inferior option. The most common advice now on forums and certain blogs is to just throw your money in a l0w-fee mutual fund tracking an index, but this was not covered in the book at all.

The fitness aspect was well written and addresses most of the issues people face. I really liked the citing of research regarding the reward effect that buying expense shoes or training equipment has. I also like the get-out-and-do-it attitude here. I found his evaluation of different technical gizmos to be antithetical when paired with the fact that buying all these things up front is probably going to lessen your motivation and make you look like a tool.

I am more dedicated to improving myself after reading this book and feel it addresses the most common plights of programmers. For most, however, I surmise that the hardest thing about digesting the content of this book will be picking up the book in the first place. As a loose guide, it's good, but, as a manual, it needs refinement and a more broad perspective.

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[Rod Hilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soft Skills is a book for software development that isn't about software development. Author John Sonmez discusses how to manage your career, how to interview, how to prepare a resume, how to market yourself, how to improve your ability to learn and take in new information, how to experiment with new technologies, how to improve your productivity and, surprisingly, even how to manage your finances and how to stay in physical shape.

The book is, for the most part, extremely valuable. A lot of the material in the Career section has been covered in other books such as The Passionate Programmer and Land the Tech Job You Love, but the section is still somewhat useful. The section on Marketing oneself was similar, I've heard a lot of the same advice for programmers before: have a twitter account, use github, contribute to OSS, speak at conferences, write a book, etc. The section on Learning was okay but a bit abstract, and mostly common sense. For the most part, those were really the sections I was expecting from the book honestly, based on the title. I figured the book would mostly be about enriching the skills that help you thrive at work, that's typically what I consider "soft skills" at the office. I expected some stuff about navigating corporate ladders or even communicating with coworkers but there really wasn't much of that. I expected the career/marketing/learning stuff as well, and that was there though not particularly stellar.

However, the chapters that I wasn't expecting were phenomenal. The section on Productivity was great, with lots of useful tips for how to be more productive, track your productivity, and get past hurdles like procrastination. When I saw the section title I thought it was just going to be a lot of "OMGZ POMODORO TECHNIQUE!" which was there of course, but there was a lot more that was useful too.

The Financial section is the one I consider the "worth the price of admission" section of the book. If you're a software engineer, you owe it to yourself to at least read this section. It's about salary negotiation, investing, stock options, debt management, retirement plans, and more. These are things that I always wished I knew more about, but it's not taught in school and the internet is rife with scams rather than useful information on these topics. It's weird because it's always tough to ask about this sort of thing at work - people somehow expect everyone to understand 401k's and stock options, and folks are weirdly cagey about giving advice/help on these matters. The chapter on Stock Options was the first thing that finally made the subject make sense to me, and there's two sections in the Appendix about money and stock markets that are required reading as well.

The Fitness section was also great, good solid advice contained therein. There are also two more appendix sections on nutrition and fitness that are phenomenal, and they alone were better than the entirety of O'Reilly's Fitness for Geeks book. The final section, "Spirit" is largely useless. Lots of froo-froo garbage and nonsense, I found myself skimming a lot of it because I was hurting myself rolling my eyes.

Overall, the book is pretty well-written and conversational. Information is pared down into consumable chunks, and each chapter is generally only a few pages long so it's easy to pick up, read a little, and put back down. There's a bit of a vibe/tone of a sleazy car-salesman to Sonmez's writing, you sort of occasionally feel like you're listening to a Tony Robbins self-help lecture, there were multiple times when I sort of felt like I was taking advice from a douchebag. Later, on page 334, the author includes a few pictures of himself from his male-modeling days and confirms, yep, you're reading the words of a douchebag.

Tone/eyerolling notwithstanding, the book contains tons of useful advice and practical information. There's a large amount of stuff that should probably be taken with a grain of salt, especially regarding finances because the author seems to think he's in a position to give financial advice due to "retiring" at 33 years old, but includes a section on how he accomplished this that basically boils down to "I got really really lucky" and even includes a bit of "I'm a Christian and I was rewarded for my tithing". He also rented gumball machines for a while. Er, what?

In any case, I highly recommend this book to software developers, particularly the section on Finances and, if you've never seen it in another book, the sections on Career and Marketing Yourself.

[Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alternative title: How I got where I am

Alternative alternative title: How to be a functioning adult, for programmers

This has very little to do with "soft skills" the way I'm used to the term. In my head, soft skills means social skills, and I thought I'd get something like Emotional Intelligence. What this actually is is a collection of ~70 blog-post length articles on practically everything the author did to become a successful programmer:

The reality of the situation, though, is that everything that’s worthwhile comes as a result of hard work. In life, and especially in your software development career, you have to learn how to sit down and do the work you don’t want to do—and do it consistently—if you really want to see results.

The chapters are very uneven, there's useful stuff on how to plan work, which techniques to use, how to make long-term plans for your programming career, then less interesting chapters - for example, how to handle your finances is a bit too US-specific - he focuses on real estate investment, I can't even buy a house in Australia; or chapters on fitness, etc. - still, sometimes there's some valuable advice for younger people (like the above quote, "fake it till you make it" etc.).

I'm aware I'm not the target audience (I earn less than the average US programmer, and when I look at house prices I laughcry), but I think young programmers just towards the end of their studies would benefit greatly from some of the advice here.

3.5, I guess?

[An Nguyen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read about 1/4 of the book before I had to finally throw in the towel.

The author seems like a nice person but a lot of his credentials seem questionable at best. He has a lot of things to brag about throughout the course of the book but it's hard to believe a lot of the time.

He doesn't come across as an expert at all. The book covers such a wide range of advice and topics with such little depth that there is hardly any useful or practical information that can be scavenged from it. In fact, I feel like a lot of the advice given is just parroted from other sources the author isn't citing.

The author just doesn't come across as an authoritative source of information. Many important topics are skimmed across and add zero value to the book at all. This feels like one of those books where the author wrote out the table of contents first and then just hammered them away one by one for completion's sake.

However, the topic of the book is an extremely interesting one and a niche that deserves to be explored more in-depth by someone more qualified.

[Adrian Sanchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book at a time when I felt like my software development career has started to become boring. A time when I felt unmotivated. A time when I wasn't learning new things... when I feel like I'm being left behind, and when i feel like my skills were stagnating and quickly becoming obsolete.

Soft Skills was the perfect book that I needed.

The book is full of practical advice that will help you improve your overall life as a software developer. It covers a very broad range of topics that are of interest to software developers and the author did a great job of discussing those topics in a very condensed, but very concise manner.

The book instilled in me a sense of motivation and a sense of urgency for me to start making personal changes in order to make my job, my career, and my life more fulfilling and rewarding. From honing my skills as a developer, to putting effort to perform better at my job, to start paying attention to my finances, and to try and become healthier. This book definitely pushed me to take a significant step in the right direction.

[Šimon Tóth · Rating 2 out of 5]

TL;DR: This book was recommended in a podcast I listen to. I don't understand why.

Honestly, if you never ever read anything about good lifestyle, self-improvement, management, finances, etc... then this book is a passable introductory point.

For me, it was very information sparse material (many words, little substance). Each chapter has a summary, introduction and then another summary with a generally vague text in the middle. After reading it (actually listening to the audio-book which is in this case a superior version), I do understand how the author was able to write one chapter per day.

I don't even understand how the chosen topics are particularly important for software developers.

[Mohammad Khatib · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed the amount of diverse topics this book had, from different career paths you can choose as a programmer to negotiating your salary to investing.

It really gives you a bird's-eye view of your past, current and future career moves and what you could have done better and what you could do better in in the future. I wish I've read this earlier in my career, though I wouldn't be sure if I would relate to it as much as now, it felt that I am reading it at the right time, but a lot of the details I wished I've read more about early on.

We tend to ignore these soft skills and focus on what we do best and are comfortable with, coding. I came to realize that these soft skills are as important as any other technical skills you might posses and develop.

Really enjoyed the books concise and small chapters, it gave me an achievable goal to everyday (read 5 chapters every day).

[Paweł Rusin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Your mileage my vary but most probably that's not the book you want to read.
If you struggle with advancing your career, get yourself a book on advancing your career.
If you struggle with personal finance, get yourself a book on personal finance.
If you struggle with staying fit, get yourself a book on fitness.
This book tries to cover all those topics (and many more) but all of them are covered in too general, incomplete and sometimes inaccurate fashion.

Also, this book does not really have much of a developer-specific advices. Every second chapter starts with "You might wonder why I decided to put this chapter in this book..." and yes, all those chapters shouldn't probably be here.

[Alex Ott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very US-specific. There are some good advice, but not everything could be adapted as-is.

[aqeel · Rating 5 out of 5]

الكتاب اكثر من رائع، يقدم معلومات عن السيرة الذاتية، التعلم، تنظيم الوقت، التجارة ، توزيع المهام، الرياضة، الصحة، التغذية وغيرها الكثير. اعتقد بأنه ليس فقط المطورين بحاجة لهذا الكتاب ولكن اي شخص يعمل بمجال تقانة المعلومات.
The book is great, contain a lot of information that I would say not only developers need but everyone who work in IT world. contain information about : career, learning, CV, marketing, even fitness and sports and other things. nothing in details but fair enough for IT developer.

[Regis Hattori · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a good book that covers a lot of subjects and it is an alternative if you are looking for general ideas that could improve your life in some way.

I cannot give more than 3 stars since the book is a little shallow, but as a counterpart, it provides some references for whom that want to go deeper.

[Abdul-Vakhab Emiev · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is pretty good introductory to almost every single dimension of life. The truth is that John's tempting to cover everything but it's hard to do so. But the book successfully creates the anchors which you can stick with your further upgrowth. I found this book useful, especially the section on productivity.

[Johnny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soft Skills by John Z. Sonmez offers a holistic approach on all the things you should know as a developer. Starting with your career, how to marketing yourself, how to improve your productivity and faster learning over to your spirit, your finances and your personal fitness. All that is covered on 500 pages and will help you to find your better self. It’s however not done with reading the book. You will have to put in a lot of time and effort. Luckily John shows how you easily can get the needed time.

The most important point of this book is discussed early on: The driving force of a career must come from the individual. Remember: Jobs are owned by the company, you own your career!

It’s therefore your job, and not the one of the company you work for, to care about what you do and how you stay competitive. The book gives you a lot of possibilities to catch up with the current technologies and how you can optimise your learning process to fit all in your available time slot.

The part on learning together with the productivity improvements therefore are the ones I liked the most. The other parts are not bad but more controversial and therefore not a silver bullet you simply can adapt.

The 10 point learning plan is something I will put in action immediately. In this field I have room for improvements and who knows if all it takes is a bit more playing with technology.

I already follow a productivity plan similar to the one of John and can therefore recommend to adapt such a plan for yourself.

[Jason Lowenthal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find this book both informative and direct with the lessons it teaches.

Unfortunately, due to an educational background that I'm lucky enough to possess, most of the lessons taught in this book are only reminders and reflection points for me. I got a computer science degree and a business degree - which is pretty much a good succinct synopsis of this book.

Most of the programmers I know didn't take the time to take marketing classes, or health classes, or investing classes while in college. This book targets all of those programmers directly. It teaches the fundamentals of money management, wise investing, self-marketing, and all of the other critical characteristics someone needs no matter what field they might find themselves working in.

I definitely recommend this book's lessons and material for anyone looking to 'get ahead' in their careers. The advice garnered certainly offers a powerful punch. Just make sure to keep it on your bookshelf and remind yourself of its powerful teachings a couple of times a year. It's not just a read it and forget it kind of book - it really is a good tool as a high-level reference for a broad range of not-so-technical subjects.

[Jan Holcapek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haven't read the whole book, since it really is a kind of a reference manual (as the subtitle reads). Based on the title, I have mistakenly expected the book is focused on communication/behavioral soft skills only/mainly, yet it covers broader range of soft skills, including setting short/long term goals, salary negotiation (good one for sure), going freelancing, even staying in a good (physical) shape, and investing and retirement plan. I will surely get back to this book should the need arise.

[Vladimir · Rating 4 out of 5]

My friends have recommended me this book. Firstly I was skeptical about it.
I don't image how anyone could write a whole book about so restricted theme.
How many words you can tell about software engineers soft skills? I suppose a couple of dozen words not more. But author could did a big deal. It's fantastic but John collect as much advices as he can. Moreover those advices were enough for the whole book, the good book.
There are many useful advices in the book. However the general lack is too much self PR. It's sometimes annoying.

[Helio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very broad book with good and not so good topics. First part of this book covers branding, self marketing and how to sell you or your product from a developer's perspective. From there, so many empty tips and tricks fullfil all the remaning pages. Some of them, for example the financial one, has some obvious yet important tips you might find useful. I'd recommend this book if you're interested in promoting yourself or if you're struggling in "what's next" you could focus or achieve in your career as a developer.

[Michelle Tran · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book doesn't have anything to do with "soft skills" the way I understand it (ie. social skills, how to people). Instead, it is a very superficial guide on a wide range of life things, unrelated to being a software developer. Anyone can read this... targeting it to software developers is mainly a marketing gimmick (Sonmez is following his own advice here perhaps). In terms of the content of each individual sections (ie. career, learning, marketing, fitness, financial, "spirit", etc), nothing was particularly insightful and you can find better guides on these elsewhere.

[Eugene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would rate it as 6 if I could. Must read for every junior software engineer.
This is the best book for software engineers which answers a lot of questions I had when I was in the junior position. I used an approach with gathering a lot of non-technical articles, conference talks, and other materials to understand what non-technical skills I need to promote and thrive as a software engineer. The author covers my finding , yet there are more to learn in a senior position like strategy, writing, leadership, etc.

[Octavio Fernandes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Almost everything stated by the author is based solely on his self impressions, almost nothing has a reference or backed by studies - I have no idea how can this book be proclaimed "software developer manual".
You can also find advices like "write one blog post a week; publish a video a week; attend one podcast every X days and so on... Sounds like the author is very oriented to quantity over quality

[Nikas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reads like a bland informercial. It feels like the author is writing just to fill the word count quota, which is basically what he tells us multiple times in the book. The only reason for the second star is a few chapters that focus more on the personal experience of the author. This book has content for maybe two blog posts, which is what it should have been. Skip.

[Daniel Noventa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book written in bite sized chapters. Not all of the information is common sense, but it is written in an accessible way. Recommended read for anyone wanting to get a little more life out of life. There may be a few times where he shamelessly pitches his own products, but the tools mentioned, mostly free, were already useful.

[Mikhail Filatov · Rating 1 out of 5]

Besides several chapters and the fact that the author worked for several years as Software developer, this book has nothing specifically "software developer"-oriented.
It's a mix of copy/paste/rephrase from self-help books, promotion of the author and his company+several chapters on how he invested in real estate.

[Pavel Karateev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really nice book about general problems every developer faces during his professional path. There are no revelations, everythong is pretty well known, but nevertheless I found the book to be a well prepared collection of great ideas under one cover that anyone can benefit.

[Gjermund Bjaanes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic book that every developer should have if they are serious about their life and career.

[Adrian Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice advices for all around approach of programming life, not just coding.

[Rob · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read like a commercial throughout without any substantial content, consistently felt like a sales pitch.