The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide — A Review
My opinion overall is that about 30% of this book is useful and the other 70% is not, but the 30% makes it worth it. I am not sure if that is too harsh, or too generous — this is like the software engineering equivalent of a self-help book, and even though it reads fairly easily it still requires you to get through more than 900 pages. What are you going to find in this book? Everything. It explores web technology stacks, job interview tips, and career advancement. What will you not find in this book? Depth. Even the web technology stacks I just mentioned are discussed with maybe a paragraph each. This is going to feel a lot less like reading a technical book than one of those self-help books you download on Kindle and bring to a coffee shop.
It only costs around $10 for more than 900 pages, but you could spend $0 reading something a little more high-priority…like the entirety of the Vue.js documentation. If you are willing to spend a few dollars, you could read any number of technical software engineering books, including the ones Sonmez himself recommends in this one. I have not. They do not read as well as this book.
Who is John Sonmez?
John Sonmez is a YouTube star and former tech lead who frequents the Internet under the alias “SimpleProgrammer.” He is a software development entrepreneur, public speaker, and best-selling author whom you can become acquainted with by looking up his name on YouTube. Doing so will yield 1-minute long TikTok videos that make click-baity statements, such as “Stop having female friends” and “Don’t treat her like a queen,” and clicking on them will give you an immediate barrage of dating advice cliches, sound effects, and emojis. These TikToks are like the social media equivalent of injecting Sonmez directly into your bloodstream.
This book is like a 900-page long representation of who Sonmez is as a person. It projects his personality. It chronicles his life experience. It includes hyperlinks to his other products, and occasionally mentions Tony Robbins and weight-lifting.
How Sonmez Built a Brand
Even if “Sonmez” does not ring a bell, you have likely encountered his work at some point. His website, SimpleProgrammer, mastered the SEO game and comes up as one of the first results whenever you Google something sort of vague, like how to ace a technical interview. His website has multiple professional writers, some of whom write things that are much more useful than what he writes. He has a really popular YouTube channel about…wait for it…dating advice (as well as a significantly less popular YouTube channel called SimpleProgrammer). He regularly frequents tech conferences. I encountered him on an episode of Programming Throwdown.
And this was a really, really good episode. He comes across as a really likable, entertaining guy. Another disclaimer: I am writing this blog post as we speak because Sonmez recommends it in his book, meaning I was clearly influenced in some way.
So let’s get to it, then.
The Bad
Sonmez, I would say (just from browsing threads on r/cscareerquestions and YouTube), is not a very divisive figure in the tech community — some people really like him and some people really hate him, so the people who like him buy his products, the people who dislike him do not, and everyone moves along. If I compared him to Tai Lopez, it would probably be unfair and he would probably be offended. If I compared him to Tony Robbins, he would probably agree and be flattered. Sonmez comes across in this book as extremely self-aware. He will try to sell a product to you eight times, admit that he is shamelessly plugging nine times, and then make a useful tip about how to negotiate salary somewhere in between.
Sonmez is like the human embodiment of one side of the tech community, the side that excitedly comes to work early every morning, hits the gym, and attends tech conferences. This side prides itself on self-improvement. This side makes a lot of money, grinds hard four hours a day on a side business, and spends weekends freelancing. Not everyone in tech is like this. Some people are content to just work 9–5, take care of their kids, and buy some book on algorithms instead of buying this one.
Sonmez pays homage in this book to Dale Carnegie and Mark Manson and…well…it shows. Carnegie single-handedly invented the self-help genre with his incredibly famous book, How to Lose Friends and Be An Asshole. In all fairness, the latter has some pretty solid advice. “When you talk to people, show an interest in them.” “People really, really notice whether or not you remember their names and pronounce them correctly.” “If you want to persuade someone, manipulate them by feeding them just enough information so as to falsely believe it was their idea.” These are some very logical, very useful common sense tactics that a psychopath might use to gain followers and eradicate opposition. What Carnegie and Manson both use that Sonmez lacks, however, is eloquence.
And maybe this is intentional. You will find no deep, profound statements in this software developer book about the human condition, or struggle, or some touching anecdote about witnessing a close friend die in an accident and then dealing with the tailspin of emotional devastation. That is fine. This is a software developer book. But what you end up with is this strange mix of a self-help book and a technical book that is not really that technical and not as entertaining or compelling as it could be.
The Good
I have not yet talked at all about the actual content, so let’s get that over with.
On page 125, which is when I started taking notes, Sonmez lays down some advice on how to get an internship as a software developer. He says pay should not matter at all in an internship, which I completely disagree with, then goes into a methodical breakdown of how he recommends applying for jobs. Some of his advice is really good, like how you should tailor your resume to each individual job application (I don’t, but you should!), how you should establish a quota for how many jobs to apply to each day, and how you should actually format the bullet points in your resume. He brings up a lot of points that I think are pretty stupid, like how you should interview the CEO for a podcast and get a job that way (sounds like something that worked for him, clearly, but that does not mean it is good advice), or how you should convince a company that they need you and then make up a position for you to fill, or how you should offer a “money-back guarantee” so that if you do not cut it as an intern, you get 0 pay. I think the last point might be good for someone who has their own business, but not an intern.
If we lived in some alternate universe where this blog was popular, I could visualize him or one of his fans arguing that these are all solid pieces of advice. My belief is that Sonmez found lots of personal success, used these techniques to get there, but now writes as if said techniques are recommended approaches for everyone. It was anecdotal. To further the point, he argues that third party recruiters are a great resource, but it is really important that you not embarrass them by performing poorly in interviews. I think this advice is indicative of someone who has not dealt with very many third party recruiters.
My next set of notes start on page 435, meaning I apparently did not find anything worth noting in the next 300 pages. He states that you should not try to shoot for “junior developer” as a starting point, which I completely agree with. He talks about ways to keep up learning on the job, which is some really useful content. He starts to discuss workplace etiquette, and he has a very mature take on lots of workplace environment situations. He talks about why you should not partake in gossip. He talks about conflict resolution. He talks a lot about soft skills, which is where this book really shines.
Around page 760 or so, when you are starting to get close to the finish line, he randomly starts getting into really, really useful advice I wish he had brought up closer to the beginning. He talks about personal coding projects. He talks about how he built a brand, and how to run a business. He shares his own personal journey, and he actually gives a much clearer idea of how he built everything he has today from the ground up.
So basically, what you get when you buy this book is a ton of content. Some of it is useful. The format, with its humor and self-promotion and self-awareness about said self-promotion, is either entertaining or frustrating. That part depends on personal taste.
The Emotional Advantage
I keep referring to this as a self-help book, even though it technically is not, but I think there is something interesting to be said about the nature of self-help books. I used to really like the genre in college — I still do, to a point. You read them and you feel motivated.
I read this book, and I felt motivated. I wanted to keep posting on this blog once or twice a week (otherwise people may begin to suspect that CorgiCorporation is not a real company). I wanted to build a personal brand. I wanted to start building some personal projects and then sell them, like Sonmez had. You could call that value in and of itself, since many software developers and software engineers feel burned out after a while.
But is this the best technology guru to turn to? It depends on your preference. You might prefer to take a technological deep dive into a programming language, or maybe research the ins and outs of UX. The SimpleProgrammer brand is oriented toward soft skills, which makes for an interesting break from the harder subjects. Over time, though, you have to find resources that are a little more detailed.
Closing Thoughts
Please enjoy this 22-second Sonmez video called “How to pass Women’s [poop emoji] test”
