Episode · The Pragmatic Engineer · 2025-07-09
Gergely Orosz & Steve Huynh: books mentioned on The Pragmatic Engineer
What is a Principal Engineer at Amazon? With Steve Huynh
Supported by Our Partners • Statsig — The unified platform for flags, analytics, experiments, and more. • Graphite — The AI developer productivity platform.
Steve Huynh recommended So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport, AI Engineering by Chip Huyen, and Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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So Good They Can't Ignore You
So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport is a career guide arguing that developing rare and valuable skills matters far more than simply following one's passion.
Recommended“I think that most software developers should read a book by Kell Newport. It's called so good they can't ignore you. And so the concept there is around career capital. So like what are the skills that are in the most demand?”
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“Um, in terms of like tech books, I think the new uh AI engineering book uh by Chipwin is is amazing.”
Where to get it
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Designing Data-Intensive Applications
Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann is widely regarded as an essential guide for engineers building large-scale back-end systems and distributed architectures.
Recommended“Um, I think uh DDIA, so the the the design of data intensive so good. A new new version is coming the end of a year actually. I'm excited about that. I think that'll be pretty good.”
Where to get it
