Team Geek: A Software Developer’s Guide to Working Well with Others

In a perfect world, software engineers who produce the best code are the most successful. But in our perfectly messy world, success also depends on how you work with people to get your job done.

In this highly entertaining book, Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman cover basic patterns and anti-patterns for working with other people, teams, and users while trying to develop software. This is valuable information from two respected software engineers whose popular series of talks—including “Working with Poisonous People”—has attracted hundreds of thousands of followers.

Writing software is a team sport, and human factors have as much influence on the outcome as technical factors. Even if you’ve spent decades learning the technical side of programming, this book teaches you about the often-overlooked human component. By learning to collaborate and investing in the “soft skills” of software engineering, you can have a much greater impact for the same amount of effort.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Myth of the Genius Programmer
Chapter 2 Building an Awesome Team Culture
Chapter 3 Every Boat Needs a Captain
Chapter 4 Dealing with Poisonous People
Chapter 5 The Art of Organizational Manipulation
Chapter 6 Users Are People, Too
Appendix A Further Reading