Top Book Recommendations for Tech Professionals and Engineering Managers | Episode 24

Every great leader has a few books that quietly shaped how they lead.For Duncan and Jason, those books go far beyond tech manuals. They’re the ones that teach you how to think, how to communicate, and how to take responsibility when things get hard.In this week’s Tech Council, they open their personal libraries and share the titles that stuck. Expect reflections on ownership, transparency, and the hidden leadership lessons inside biographies, history books, and even fiction.This isn’t your ordinary book recommendations episode. It’s about why some ideas endure, why others fail in practice, and why the best tech lessons sometimes come from outside of tech entirely.Books Mentioned in this Episode:The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AIExtreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and WinThe Dichotomy of LeadershipRadical CandorTurn the Ship AroundPHP/MySQL Programming for the Absolute BeginnerThe Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital RevolutionJohn Adams by David McCullough1776 by David McCulloughThe Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of LivingGood to Great: A Study of Management Strategies of Companies with Lasting GrowthHigh Output Management by Andy Grove12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to ChaosThe Hard Thing About Hard ThingsWhat You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business CultureRework by Jason Fried and DHHHigh Growth HandbookThree-Body ProblemThe AlchemistConnect with us:Duncan MapesJason EhmkeDevGrid.ioDevGrid on LinkedInDevGrid on X