Top 23 Best Software Engineering Books Updated 12 /2023
Dennis Lehane Dec 1, 2023 7:22 AM
Here we ranked and reviewed the top 23 Best Software Engineering Books that are highly rated by 18,012 customers.

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Microsoft Outlook 2022: The Most Updated Crash Course from Beginner to Advanced | Learn All the Functions to Manage Email, Organize your Inbox, and Become a Pro in 7 Days or Less
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Scenario-Focused Engineering: Design and Innovation for Software Engineers (Developer Best Practices)
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Product Management's Sacred Seven: The Skills Required to Crush Product Manager Interviews and be a World-Class PM (Fast Forward Your Product Career: The Two Books Required to Land Any PM Job)
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Python Crash Course, 2nd Edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming
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Ace the Data Science Interview: 201 Real Interview Questions Asked By FAANG, Tech Startups, & Wall Street
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Engineers Survival Guide: Advice, tactics, and tricks After a decade of working at Facebook, Snapchat, and Microsoft
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Python Programming for Beginners: The #1 Python Programming Crash Course for Beginners to Learn Python Coding Well & Fast (with Hands-On Exercises)
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Engineers Survival Guide: Advice, tactics, and tricks After a decade of working at Facebook, Snapchat, and Microsoft
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Expert Python Programming: Master Python by learning the best coding practices and advanced programming concepts, 4th Edition
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Kotlin Design Patterns and Best Practices: Build scalable applications using traditional, reactive, and concurrent design patterns in Kotlin, 2nd Edition
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Hands-On Design Patterns and Best Practices with Julia: Proven solutions to common problems in software design for Julia 1.x
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OBS Super User Guidebook: The Best Open Broadcaster Software Features & Plugins (Open Broadcaster Software Guidebook Series 2)
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- BrandIndependently Published
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CMake Best Practices: Discover proven techniques for creating and maintaining programming projects with CMake
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Last update on 2023-12-01 / Affiliate links / Images, Product Titles, and Product Highlights from Amazon Product Advertising API
In the world of software engineering, things change all the time and sometimes quickly, which makes it important for developers to keep learning. People in groups can be a big help with many things, but there are also books that can help you focus on a philosophy or an issue.
It includes books that are on Amazon's Best Sellers in Software Design & Engineering list, books that are required reading for software developers on Goodreads' Listopia, and suggestions from a few software engineers we talked to about what books they should be reading now.
Cracking the Coding Interview
by Gayle Laakmann McDowell
On Amazon, this book is number one and the most talked about by engineers. Cracking the Coding Interview is a guide that will make your interviews for computer jobs go better. The 6th edition has 189 programming interview questions with walk-throughs and tips on how to solve the problems you're given; five ways to answer algorithm questions; and a guide to how companies hire new programmers, so you know how to get hired.
Especially if you haven't looked for a job in a while, "whiteboarding and algorithmic questions can be very different from what you do every day." Biron Clark, a former tech recruiter and the founder of CareerSidekick.com, says this. "This book will help you do well in a coding job interview, with examples of questions and answers."
Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
by Robert C. Martin
A lot of people like Clean Code, which is second on both Amazon and Goodreads. It was also a big hit with programmers, too. Martin's book teaches you how to tell bad code from good code and how to make good code out of bad code, too. When writing clean code, you need to follow certain rules and follow patterns. You also need to look at examples of clean code and find out what you found out while writing the examples.
It shows how important it is to write well-organized and well-written code by giving real examples and case studies, as well as theoretical information. Vladlen Shulepov, CEO of Riseapps, said this:
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
By Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas
The goal of The Pragmatic Programmer is to teach the basics of software development, such as how to get a job, how to be responsible, how to adapt and reuse your code, and how to make your code better. The book talks about the best ways to write software and the most common problems.
It doesn't take years to learn about development, says Shulepov. This book helps people learn about it quickly.
A Philosophy of Software Design
by John Outsterhout
Ousterhout's book talks about how difficult it is to manage software design and how hard it is to get things done. The book also talks about how to think about design, how to use principles during the process, and how to find problems that happen while you're working on a piece of art.
As the founder of Wall Street Zen, Nate Tsang told me, "It's not very long, but there is a lot to unpack and digest." "It has a lot of little things that I might have picked up instinctively over the years, but I haven't seen them explained and laid out as well as this." For young engineers, Ousterhout's idea that software is a fight against complexity is a great way to think about good software design. It's a must-read for them.
Don’t Make Me Think
by Steve Krug
People who use software or web sites are more likely to accept the first solution that they see, so software engineers should take advantage of this and think about it when they design. The book is about being simple, short, and common sense.
Mike Gilfillan, the Technical Lead at Edge of the Web, says that this book is "a must-read for any software engineer." If you want to learn about UX and change your way of thinking so that UX is always the main factor in your decisions, this book should be your go-to source.
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
by Frederick P. Brooks
New advice and opinions about project management in the software engineering world are in the Anniversary Edition. Brooks says that adding more people to a project that is already late will only make things worse.
A few of the things that he talks about are scheduling problems and the second-system effect as well as irreducible errors.
Head First Design Patterns
by Eric Freeman, Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates, and Elisabeth Robson
This Head First book talks about problems that software engineers might have with design patterns, and how to deal with them. A software engineer can learn about the most important patterns and how and when to use them. They can also learn when it's best not to use them at all.
In software engineering, there are hundreds of books on just about every subject you can think of. In your search for books that are more relevant to your job, Goodreads is a good place to start. It has reviews and feedback from other engineers. Also, the site has a section called Listopia called Listopia that allows you to make lists for specific things you want to look for.
The Imposter’s Handbook
Rob Conery wrote his book for people who don't have a lot of experience with computer science. Cracking the Coding Interview, like the one above, will help you get your foot in the door. I think The Imposter's Handbook, on the other hand, is more useful in general. It talks about many of the basic ideas that will help you understand the parts of computer programming that aren't at the top.
"I'm being taught right now, and it's good! The best thing for people who haven't gone to college but want to learn computer science properly is this: "I can't say enough good things about this."
Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman
Dave Hoover helped start Dev Bootcamp, which was one of the first short-term coding schools in the United States. He also wrote this great guide for new programmers. It talks about a lot of the things you're going to have to deal with as a new developer, focusing mostly on interpersonal and motivational issues.
"That's great! As a professional software developer, I've learned a lot from reading this book. Instead of having to learn best practices the hard way, I had a guru sitting on my shoulder to help me every step of the way toward master craftsmanship.