Engineers Survival Guide: Advice, tactics, and tricks After a decade of working at Facebook, Snapchat, and Microsoft

by Merih Taze

- Authored by Merih Taze , Senior Software Engineering Lead at Facebook (Previously Microsoft and Snapchat)

There are a lot of amazing technical books out there. But what about your life as an engineer ? How you interact with others ? How happy are you with your career ?
If you've been feeling alone in your journey and keep wishing you had a friend or a mentor you could get some advice about non-technical aspects, look no further!

Inside, you will find the summary of advice, tactics, and tricks learned the hard way through many years of working on mission-critical components, complex system designs supporting billions of users, and working with thousands of the most brilliant engineers around the world.

Have a survival guide for most situations you'll be facing throughout your career as an engineer and learn how to play for the long game .

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Topics Conflict resolution, finding mentors, prioritization, interviews, importance of data, visibility, failures, consensus, design discussions, how to drive meetings, adaptability, ambiguity, networking, meetings with your managers (one on ones), biggest regret, perfectionism, system design, calendar, focus blocks, office jargon, diversification, positive surroundings, being the happy coworker, working at a startup, office politics, playing for the long game

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

254 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 13, 2022

About the author

Senior Software Engineering Lead at Facebook (Previously Microsoft and Snapchat).

I enjoy improving myself every chance I get; lifelong learning is one of my top values.

Reviews

[Mikhail Filatov · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is too much about the author - how awesome he is. Not about the reader.
There are some valuable nuggets of wisdom - continuously ask for feedback, write meeting notes, etc.
But at the same time he mentioned around 5 times how Snap stock went up 17 times (are you still keeping it, bro, lol?), etc.
He also generalizes too much his experience with some companies pecularities. E.g., separation of a Manager and Tech Lead role - which exists in FB and (probably) in Snapchat, but not in Amazon, for example. But he never said "it depends" in chapters about management.
What is missing is any tangible reference to his designs - and it shows, as the book has no structure - a set of musings on different items, often repeated after 100 pages in a different form.
So - maybe interesting to look through, but nothing more than a set of blog posts without any good structure or coherence.

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok book that can be skimmed through in couple of evenings.
Would be absolutely pointless to anyone who's been working at any job for couple of years or more, but possibly might be useful for a junior on their first gig.
Each article has a 1 sentence summary, which is a good thing. And in most cases it can actually replace whole article it summarizes.
Thematically it jumps around without much organization - that's not criticism, just something to be aware of.

[Edwin Torres · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the opportunity to read this book with detailed attention, so here are my insights.What I liked:- I loved the examples based on Mreifh's experience.- I found much insightful advice to learn how to influence, negotiate, manage communications, and move inside a company smartly.- This book is suitable for people who have been working for years or just started their professional careers.What can be improved:- In some cases where there are some technical explanations or specific concepts it would be useful to put some references, either blogs or trusted websites to get more details.- It would be nice to have a chapter to talk about the fundamentals about what is a good engineer or how to be prepared for future.

[Juan Chavez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book..4 stars only because it is geared more towards junior or mid level engineers

There are a lot of amazing technical books out there. But what about your life as an engineer? How you interact with others? How happy are you with your career?

Are you tired of the need to put on a fake confidence show?
Are you having a hard time convincing others?
Are you interested in getting promoted?
Are you overworked and can't find a way to get the help you need?
Are you scared of the feedback from your peers?
Do you find yourself in conflicts with no solution in sight?
Want to learn the secrets of having your manager work for you?
Interested in building a career you'll be proud to talk about?

If you've been feeling alone in your journey and keep wishing you had a friend or a mentor you could get some advice about non-technical aspects, look no further!

Inside, you will find the summary of advice, tactics, and tricks learned the hard way through many years of working on mission-critical components, complex system designs supporting billions of users, and working with thousands of the most brilliant engineers around the world.

Have a survival guide for most situations you'll be facing throughout your career as an engineer and learn how to play for the long game.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Topics Covered: Conflict resolution, finding mentors, prioritization, interviews, importance of data, visibility, failures, consensus, design discussions, how to drive meetings, adaptability, ambiguity, networking, meetings with your managers (one on ones), biggest regret, perfectionism, system design, calendar, focus blocks, office jargon, diversification, positive surroundings, being the happy coworker, working at a startup, office politics, playing for the long game

[Maziz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good advices. Good easy reading.

[Lenny A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author is a smartass that throws funny phrases like- "nine women cannot make a baby in one month," making a book about work highly enjoyable.

You don't have to be an engineer to benefit from the advice in these pages. Anyone working for a large or small corporation can find something useful in this book, like:

Dealing with managers
Work evaluations
All hands meetings
How to take good risks at work that pay off later
How to become more useful and make your coworkers see you as essential
How to position yourself to get a promotion and when to jump ship (very important people)

If you're an engineer or about to become one. This is required reading.

Corporate environments suck, but if you understand the game and navigate it well, you can thrive, make your money and be happy.

The chapter on adaptability is pretty useful.

[Kaan Taze · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to pleasure of reading this book in one sitting. It is full of great insights. Although I'm in early stages of my career there are some chapters talking about the things that I happen to be familiar with, there are some chapters which I anticipate to experience and rest is just enlightening. This is not a "Bootstrap your career and make trillions of $$$ in an hour" kind of book. This is literally a guide book that helps you to navigate on the foggy ways of your career.

[Hafiz Hussain · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book. I want to say I wish I had gotten this book early in my career :). Still, I am thrilled I found this book; I can relate to 95 or 99% of the content of this book. Thank you for sharing your experience. Another point I learned in my career working with different companies is that everyone comes from diverse backgrounds. Sometimes some people can't understand you because they started from the top-notch, and they have no idea, and maybe some of them this book is default working style, but on the other side, many people have no idea how to think about a career and work. I still remember people used to laugh at suggestions like code reviews or writing unit tests as time waste. Same attitude people are surprised when you share like them; you ever work where people think writing unit tests is a time waste or code reviewing is a time waste?
Conclusion: Open mind, learning, unlearning, conflict resolution, and respect are some keys.
Thank you to everyone who is involved in making this book.

[Felix · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book in a book club at my work. I liked the range of topics covered and the non tech perspective on software engineering jobs. However, I feel like many things in here are america specific. The working culture is obviously different in Germany, and roughly 50% cannot really be applied. Honestly, it makes total sense. I'm just not being used to it, because usually culture differences are an afterthought when reading books for techies.

The usable 50% were solid advice, mostly. It felt a bit jumpy and a bit rambling from time to time, so I think a more coherent structure would benefit the reading experience. But all in all, it was perfect as a book club pick: It provided topics that we could discuss, and opinions to (dis)agree with.

[Vlad Bezden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm glad I found this book. This book is a gem! It has 59 great lessons/stories about how to be a great engineer/coworker/manager. The stories are not connected and can be read in any order. For example, one story is about 1:1 meetings with a manager. I read it every time I have a meeting with my manager. I also use it as a reference for work-related events/activities.
Worth reading - I learned a lot from this book.

[Alisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has some pretty solid advice for people starting out as software engineers - I feel like it doesn't provide too much new information for someone who has been in the industry for a few years, but it still has some good recommendations.
What I didn’t like is that most of the chapters seem to be disconnected from each other, i.e. there were no logical units. The writing style is very simple (maybe even too simple), almost like talking to a friend over a coffee.

[Eugene Postnow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a software engineer, which worked mostly in small companies and startups. A few months ago I joined a big company, which is comparable to scale what’s discussed in the book.

Engineers Survival Guide is a great guide which might be used as a reference book to understand what’s going on. The book is easy to read, because chapters are mostly independent, thus easily digestible and might be looked up later on.

[Nghĩa Lưu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers a valuable set of guidelines that I would find myself returning to repeatedly. It's particularly beneficial for individuals working in international tech companies, although its relevance may be somewhat limited for those based in Vietnam. In my view, approximately half of the advice provided is genuinely useful.

[erjan avid reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

short book, some advices are kinda obvioius like learning the lingo.
some are valuable - "align align and align" with CEO.

according to this book - you have to be navigating your career, people, leader's vision and constantly evaluate the course of the company.

[Mohamed Wa · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was really helpful to read this book and recognise that we all share a lot of details and feelings , most of the time I felt like it’s describing me, my feeling and reaction towards a situation at work.

[Michael Keller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would recommend this to engineering students and early career engineers as much of it you will pick up on the first five years of your career. it is pretty straightforward, thought the prose could be much better.

[TurboLion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read, especially for new engineers.

[Dean Overton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straight to the point. Compact and insightful.

[Dmitriy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very easy to read. Author gave several valuable advice

[Mahmoud Tabikh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its good if ure just starting in the coroprate life, i did not find much value as i read it later on in my career.