The Handbook

The Handbook is a collection of resources and references made to help guide new software engineers through their career.

Introduction

My name is James Louie and I’ve been a software developer for 6 years and some change. I’ve worked in a variety of different contexts like software engineer and consultant with every kind of technology including: mobile development, web development, monolithic systems, and distributed systems. My expertise has been development optimization in making teams more effective.

I decided to make this minisite because I want to help the next generation of software engineers become successful in their careers. Over the years I’ve onboarded many times and helped many others through the process - and I have always found it lacking. There is a clear disconnect between what college teaches you and what they expect from the work environment. My theory is that the better the onboarding experience, the faster you will be able to be effective to the team. It’s just that no one really prioritizes that because once they finish onboarding they just want to move on and don’t look back.

I want to provide insight into how you can be more effective before starting, when you start, and throughout your career.

My Mission

My mission is to create a better environment in the workplace so that new developers have a strong platform to succeed and to encourage a long-lasting culture that will see long healthy careers.

How to use this Website

This website is collection of topics that I think would be helpful in the journey of budding software engineers. There are parent sections that organize topics into different phases of one’s career. Feel free to jump to different sections that apply to you.

If you have questions, feel free to stop by Github Discussions and ask away!

Books, Books Everywhere!

There will be some sections where I just tell you to read a certain book, and I really mean it. I’m sure some of the students reading this will roll your eyes - but hear me out. When you read books with a self-motivated purpose, the content is so much more meaningful. When you pick up and read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck for the first time, your whole understanding of the world will change. There’s only so much I can condense into these articles.

Books have been my go-to resource because they are specifically crafted to teach you about something. You are exposed to ideas that you can re-read, examples to reinforce the meanings, and they allow you to reflect on the topics at your own pace.

Many of the worlds most successful people attribute their success to books,

Elon Musk quotes “books raised him”, in that it allowed him to quickly become knowledgable about completely different domains such as finance, electric cars, and rockets.

Jeff Bezos literally built a bookstore from his love of books and swears by The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done which was a factor in him building one of the worlds most valuable companies.

Warren Buffet mentions in his biography mentions that he spends 80% of his time reading, and that guy knows a thing or two about finance and wealth.

The list goes on…

The internet is great for finding resources about anything, but books guide you through all that information in a powerful way.

Disclaimer

I put in some Amazon affiliate links on this website, but honestly I’d imagine even if everyone bought something I’d have enough to pay for some boba by the end of the year. So don’t feel like I’m pressuring you guys to buy anything, I’m just doing it for fun, I stand 1000% by any reference I provided on the site.