Episode · The Pragmatic Engineer · 2026-10-21
Gergely Orosz & Will Larson: books mentioned on The Pragmatic Engineer
The revised rules of engineering management with Will Larson
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Will Larson recommended Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows and Practical TLA+ by Hillel Wayne, and discussed The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. and Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott. Gergely Orosz recommended An Elegant Puzzle by Will Larson and Crafting Engineering Strategy by Will Larson.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Mythical Man-Month
The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P.
Discussed“There's still the mythical man-month thing, but like, 'Hey, we're moving 15 more people to work on this key project.' And, you know, the mythical man-month I I I want to say was written in like '80 '84. '75, 1975. And the second version, '95.”
Where to get it
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Seeing Like a State
Seeing Like a State by James C.
Discussed“You know, the J Reed seeing like a state, like you're not allowed to be in Silicon Valley if you haven't read Seeing as it like like a state, but it's basically um a book about how a state sees citizens and accomplishments and how that shapes how policy works.”
Where to get it
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An Elegant Puzzle
An Elegant Puzzle by Will Larson is a respected guide on engineering management that offers practical frameworks and systems thinking for scaling engineering organizations.
Recommended“And and so so positively or I I remember the both the elegant puzzle and staff engineer. I read it and I took I took a lot of guidance from it.”
Where to get it
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Crafting Engineering Strategy
Crafting Engineering Strategy by Will Larson is a specialized management book that offers strategic frameworks for engineering leaders navigating organizational growth and technical direction.
Recommended“And certainly, I think Crafting Enduring Strategy came out last year and I think it's you know, the the newest one, but I think there's like a lot of interesting ideas in there for for sure.”
Where to get it
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Thinking in Systems
Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows is a foundational primer on systems theory that illuminates how complex feedback structures dictate behavior across various domains.
Recommended“I think, you know, Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows is like one that I think about a lot. read it based on your recommendation. I I think it's it's honestly the the book that kind of formed my view about management and kind of operating in companies.”
Where to get it
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Practical TLA+
Practical TLA+ by Hillel Wayne is a comprehensive technical guide that introduces software engineers to formal verification methods and system modeling.
Recommended“And then there's a another great book whose name I'm losing on TLA plus And using that Is that Hillel Wayne? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he was on the podcast. Yeah, he he has the famous TLA plus. Fantastic book.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (6) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“You probably read the SRE book that existed, which is the Google SRE book, right?”
“And it might have been like the um The Phoenix Project might have been out around then. I'm forgetting if that the exact timeline, but there was something like The Phoenix Project.”
“And one of the reasons why I wrote Staff Engineer, which I think came out in 2021, was actually like collecting feedback for some of the staff engineers I worked with.”
“I've been thinking about doing like a an add-on to staff engineer. I'll get to it in like I don't know, the next decade sometime. But it's really about decision-making in complicated situations.”
“And then, um wrote my first book, kind of the culmination of the things I'd written at Stripe and Elegant Puzzle, and then got a lot of momentum. I think a total of four books.”
“But for for my books, I I really think I've changed the the industry um with um I think staff engineer, I think in notably, I think like the staff plus kind of concept, that that that book created staff plus as like a concept, right?”