5 Best Soft Skills and Career Development Books and Courses for Developers

My favorite books to learn and improve Soft Skills for programmers, software developers and techies.

5 Best Soft Skill and Career Development Books and Courses for Developers

Most of the software developers, programmers, and coders spend a considerable amount of their time and energy on learning technologies which get obsolete in few years like a new framework or a new programming language but they neglect something more important like soft skills.

Unlike technical stuff, soft skills will not only serve you good in your job and career but also in your life and it won’t get obsolete as quickly as the new web application development framework you have just learned.

Similarly, most of us put a lot of effort to get a job but after that, we don’t put much effort to grow on that job, the result is many programmers and software developers stuck in their careers.

They remain in one position like software engineers or senior software engineers for years and stop moving up in their careers, which means less pay and no growth.

Since, no one else but you, yourself is in charge of your career, you need to come out of your comfort zone and try to move up on the ladder.

Remember, if you don’t move forward, eventually, you will start moving backward or left behind.

One of the challenges a programmer faces is about learning soft skills. They recognize that they need to improve their soft skill but they are not sure how to do that?

Since not every programmer can learn by seeing their peers and managers without external help, it becomes very important to select a good book or course to master soft skills.

Thankfully, there are a couple of good books and courses available for career development and soft skills, particularly form esteemed authors like Robert C. Martin, David Thomas, and John Sonmez, which have helped millions of developers to come out of their shell and progress in their career.

In this article, I am going to share some of the books and online courses, which has helped me and I like to read regularly to improve soft skills.

By the way, if you are learning or improve soft skills to become a software architect then starting with The Complete Guide to Becoming a Software Architect by Mami Levi on Udemy is a great first step. I have learned a lot from this course along with the books I am gong to mention.

5 Best Soft Skills and Career Development Books for Programmers

Here is my collection of some of the best books to improve your Soft skills and Career Development.

1. Soft Skills : The Software Developer’s Life Manual 2nd Edition

This was the first book I read on Soft skills which was especially designed for Developers. This is also the second edition, the first edition of this book, written by John Sonmez, was quite popular among software developers.

It covers career development, personal finance, fitness, productivity, and other non-technical aspects of a developer’s life.

The “Soft Skills” book will teach you things you don’t learn normally:

  1. Taking a holistic approach to a developer’s career and life
  2. Providing practical advice on personal branding and marketing yourself as a developer
  3. Covering financial topics like investing and entrepreneurship
  4. Addressing physical health and fitness for developers
  5. Discussing productivity techniques and personal development strategies.

The second edition of book take the same concept to next level and cover things like landing your dream job, maintaining your position, and climbing the corporate ladder requires a multifaceted approach.

After going through the boo, you will learn a thing or two about how to stand out from your competition, develop unique skills and demonstrate exceptional value through consistent performance and innovative solutions. In short, one of must read soft skill book for developers.

Here is the link to get this book — Soft Skills : The Software Developer’s Life Manual 2nd Edition

2. The Clean Coder — A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers

This is one of those book I always wished I would have gotten earlier. I strongly suggest every programmer read this book because it will teach you things which you generally learn in Jobs but it will teach you better.

You will learn things like how to say NO so that you won’t stress yourself by overcommitting and delivering less. This single thing is my biggest learning from any book I have read so far and this have helped me a lot in managing expectation, not overcommitting and maintaining an healthy work life balance.

The book will also teach you how should you can conduct yourself in a professional environment and how you can make your impression. You will also learn how to ask the right questions so that you can find risk earlier and mitigate them.

These are just some of the things top of my head, the book is full of such advice and real-life stories from Uncle Bob, author of this book. If you could just read one book to improve your soft skills as a programmer of a technical manager, this is the book you should read and read it twice.

If you need a course to go along with this book, I highly recommend you to check Soft Skills: The 11 Essential Career Soft Skills course on Udemy. It’s a nice course and also very affordable, you can buy in just $10 on Udemy sales.

3. Pragmatic Programmer 2nd Edition

This is another fantastic book which I wish every programmer should read. As the title suggests, the Pragmatic Programmer is full of advice for the programmer to succeed in their career and job.

This is also one of the most significant books I have read on Programming and Software Development.

The book is full of practical advice, both technical and professional which will serve you a long time in your career as a Software Developer, Programmer, and Technical Project Manager.

The second edition of the book has come after 20 years of Pragmatic Programmer and full of advice for modern developers.

You will how to take charge of your career and how to build teams of Pragmatic Programmers to succeed further. The book is written as a series of self-contained sections and filled with classical and fresh stories, anecdotes, thoughtful examples, and interesting analogies.

This also means that you can start with any chapter you want. I generally read it chapter by chapter whenever I get time. Though, if you want to take your soft skills to the next level, then I also suggest you check out How to become an Outstanding Solution Architect course on Udemy. It’s a great course for experienced programmers.

This is an extremely helpful and encouraging book about the fundamental principles for a software developer career. It gives you not only thoughts, but instructions and routines to follow.

In short, must-read books for every coder, programmer, software developer, and tech geeks. Big thanks to both David Thomas and Andrew Hunt for creating such an awesome book for developers.

4. Confessions of a Software Techie

This is another great book I read recently on soft skills for computer programmers. The best thing about this book is that it teaches you things which matter most.

Everybody talks about writing clean code but nobody talks about writing good emails, this book does. It teaches you how to write emails that people want to read and act.

It also teaches you how to deal with people and politics, which is very important because its people are our managers and clients and in charge of our career and job.

It also has some of the things which many of you wouldn’t like to see e.g. Why guys should not chase girls and what a committed woman wants from HER guy, but nonetheless, it contains some good advice and I don’t mind them because after all its a confessions of a software techie 🙂

The full title of the book is “Confessions of a Software Techie: The Surprising Truth about Things that Really Matter” and I highly recommend it to every developer.

5. The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development

Success in today’s IT environment requires you to view your career as a business endeavor. In this book, you’ll learn how to become an entrepreneur, driving your career in the direction of your choosing.

You’ll learn how to build your software development career step by step, following the same path that you would follow if you were building, marketing, and selling a product.

After all, your skills themselves are a product. In short, a great book for programmers and software who care about their careers, which teaches you how you can set the direction of your career, leading to a more fulfilling and remarkable professional life.

Here is the link to get this book — The Passionate Programmer

That’s all about some of the best books to learn about career development and soft skills for programmers and developers. It’s one area which is often gets neglected by the programmer and because of those many quality programmers stuck in the same position for years.

These books teach you all soft skills needed to survive and excel and software developer. It helps you to climb the ladder of career advancement and make you more valuable by encouraging you to learn about business, leadership, and management apart from coding.

Further Learning
Soft Skills: The 11 Essential Career Soft Skills
Soft Skills Masterclass — 7 in 1, Communication, Leadership
The Complete Guide to Becoming a Software Architect

Other Books and Programming Articles you may like

Thanks a lot for reading this article so far, if you like these books then please share with your friends and colleagues. If you have any feedback or questions then please drop a note.

P. S. — If you want to take your career to next level then The Complete Guide to Becoming a Software Architect course on Udemy is one of the best online course to start with. It’s the missing manual of senior developer and tech lead to become an architect.


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