The Coding Career Handbook
A career book built around the idea of learning in public, covering how to build a reputation, find mentors and sponsors, and progress from junior to senior. The most practical treatment of the networking side written for engineers.
Book
Mentorship
Shawn Wang
3 to 4 weeks
Intermediate
About $50, free chapters available
The central idea
Learn in public. Publish what you are learning as you learn it, and the artefacts accumulate into a reputation that brings opportunities to you rather than requiring you to chase them. It is the most useful career advice available to engineers and almost nobody acts on it, because it feels presumptuous to write about something you have just learned.
What else it covers
The junior to senior transition, finding mentors and the distinction between a mentor and a sponsor, choosing what to specialise in, negotiating, and the mechanics of building a public body of work without becoming a full time creator.
Why it belongs in a mentorship list
Its most valuable section is on how to acquire mentors and sponsors, which is a skill that is never taught and largely determines who gets pulled upward.
Best for: engineers in their first few years, and anyone whose work is good and unseen.
Ready to start?
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Stuck on something specific?
Writing only gets you so far. If you want an answer to your situation rather than the general case, book a session and we will work through it together. Every session is free; a few slots open each week.
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