Episode · The Pragmatic Engineer · 2025-05-28
Gergely Orosz & Janvi Kalra: books mentioned on The Pragmatic Engineer
From Software Engineer to AI Engineer – with Janvi Kalra
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Janvi Kalra recommended The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson, and discussed Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. Gergely Orosz recommended AI Engineering by Chip Huyen, and discussed The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. and Software Architecture by Mary Shaw and others.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Cracking the Coding Interview
Discussed“And so, that green book, I'm forgetting what it's called, but I remember buying that book, locking myself in my room, cracking the coding interview probably. just cracking the coding interview and just reading as many questions as I could back then.”
Where to get it
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AI Engineering
AI Engineering by Chip Huyen provides a comprehensive examination of building and navigating systems within the fast-paced field of artificial intelligence.
Recommended“And there are books coming up. I remember you interviewed Chip and she has a lovely book on how to build as an AI engineer. Yeah. Yeah. She she actually captured a lot of the things that are not really changing anymore.”
Where to get it
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The Mythical Man-Month
The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P.
Discussed“I've been going through the middle man month. I've almost finished this. This is a real old one.”
Where to get it
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Software Architecture
Discussed“It's called software architecture and it's by Mary Shaw and David Garlon and Grady Grady Bouch who's a legend in software engineering and I interviewed him. He said that he thinks this is the single best software book.”
Where to get it
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The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson is a compilation of wisdom, interviews, and aphorisms on building wealth and achieving happiness from the entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant.
Recommended“Book I'd recommend is the almanac of Neville Ravikant. I've read it a couple times. big fan of the way he talks about building your life both from a very pragmatic way about how you should do it from your career but also in terms of just how to be happy”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (1) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“Yeah, but it feels a bit like, you know, the Harry Potter wand. Like when when you watch the movies, like, you know, at first it sounds magical when you read the book, like you can do all these spells, but if you're a hardcore Harry Potter fan”