3 Books Every Software Engineer Should Read

Benjamin Jordan
5 min readSep 30, 2024

Engineers should look outside of engineering.

This is Medium after all, and content doesn’t spread if the title doesn’t say “bullet points herein”. So out with it, what are the top three books all software engineers should read? It’s probably like, data structures, OOP, and a wildcard right? Or perhaps one of them is “Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby” which, if you haven’t read it, is a comic book about why a fox loves Ruby.

Technical books are great and necessary, but these recommendations are more about pulling engineers up out of the trenches and giving them a pair of binoculars.

“See that, over there? That’s our true objective. You’re doing a fine job digging this trench but I need you to be thinking about how this trench helps us get over there.”

Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

(Link)

As you can plainly see, my copy of this book has seen better days. Yes, I hate dust jackets and my fingers are apparently disgusting. It’s “well read” as they say; full of sticky notes and highlights.

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Benjamin Jordan
Benjamin Jordan

Written by Benjamin Jordan

Tech, thought, teaching. Total loser. Founder @SpyreIO, Adjunct @SLU. Formerly VPE @N3TWORK, CTO @Big Run Studios, CTO @Enklu, Studio Tech Director @NCSOFT.