The Missing Manual
for Junior to Senior Devs
“The book could've been called Hacker News: The Good Parts. All the experience-based advice for career success, none of the toxic nonsense.” - Forrest Brazeal, AWS Serverless Hero
As Seen On
What's in The Book
10 hours of audio. 40 chapters. 450+ pages. 1,400+ links to original sources curated over 3 years. Priceless insights from dozens of developers at the top of their fields. Proven ideas, tested by personal experience, backed by solid theoretical foundations.
Career Guides
Specific advice on every career stage from Code Newbie to Junior Dev to Senior Dev, and every transition after: the First Job Hunt, going from Junior to Senior, and Beyond.
Principles
The best investments are in things that don't change. We discuss timeless rules for successful default behavior. Learn to grow your network and expertise, while you learn.
Strategies
Everything to do with making big moves, from Betting on Technologies, to Career Ladders, to Software Business Models. Grow your business and personal impact!
Tactics
Important, self-contained skills that you can repeatedly call on throughout your career, from Negotiating to Side Projects to Twitter to Writing.
Book reviews
See what our early readers are saying! Or see live Twitter reviews!
“I recommend this book for anyone who is thinking of getting into the field of software development. And I also recommend it as a reference for experienced developers. Shawn has structured this book in a way that you can easily come back to it and fill in the gaps in your knowledge.”
Quincy LarsonTeacher, freeCodeCamp
“Wow! The immense wealth of knowledge and experience shared in “The Coding Career Handbook” cannot be overstated. I love how Shawn is able to take his own experience and what he's observed in the careers of others and generalize it to principles that will help others level up their own careers. 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐”
Kent C. Dodds
KentCDodds.com
“I wish I had this book when I was switching jobs. It helps you understand what skills you should leverage and really encourages you not underlevel yourself!”
Samantha Bretous
Computer magic maker, Software Engineer at Mailchimp
“I was also lucky enough to read @Coding_Career early and I was thoroughly blown away! It’s the book I wish I had when I started my dev career.”
Randall Kanna
Engineer, Author: the Standout Developer
“The links to high-value blog posts already make the book worth it, never mind the amazing insight and context provided by Shawn. Must buy for #CodeNewbies looking to break in or senior engineers looking to grow!”
Aryan Jabbari
The WebDev Coach
“For anyone looking for career advice as a coder but is tired of being told they have to do X or never do Y. Shawn is sharing his personal experiences and knowledge of navigating these sometimes overwhelming waters in the hopes you might find something useful. It's like having a caring big brother in your pocket! (if you read on your phone)”
Chen Hui Jing
CSS lover, Developer Advocate at Nexmo
“I’m reading through swyx’s @Coding_Career and I’m genuinely impressed. It’s very dense but reads very lightly. Lots of useful context for someone coming into the industry.”
Dan Abramov
JustJavaScript.com
“I love that he included information about burnout as this is one of the biggest hurdles new developer encounter early in their career. Shawn has included links to many wonderful resources and graphs from other content creators. The section on negotiation is one I could have used early on in my career.”
Emma Bostian
Ladybug.fm, Software Engineer at Spotify
“The book could've been called (and I mean this in the best possible way, I really do) "Hacker News: The Good Parts." All the experience-based advice for career success, none of the toxic nonsense.”
Forrest Brazeal
AWS Serverless Hero, Cloud Bard at ACloudGuru
“I wish I had this book when I started my career! Every single chapter is like a growth hack but for developers. I'd say this book is worth 1000x long term!”
Carlos Roso
Full Stack Developer, Toptal
“What should I do? Just tell me what to do! There's no One Right Answer for how to become a coder, much less a happy and "successful" one. What there is, however, are thousands of stories of how folks have cracked the coding career themselves! Shawn has put together his story, with a ton of practical and pragmatic real world advice! The great thing about advice? You don't have to take it. The Coding Career Handbook is a wonderful collection of what's worked and what may not work for you! These are guidelines and tactics that you can incorporate into your coding life and career whether you're a code newbie or a code oldie like me - it's never too late to learn how to be a great programmer!”
Scott HanselmanProgrammer
The Community
The Coding Career Community is the book's auxiliary presence to ask questions, find jobs, get feedback and meet collaborators. Use it as a friendly resource as you build your career! We're active with new topics every day and no matter how much you engage we'll be here for you. Membership is granted for life.
Platforms
We are on Discord for realtime live chat as well as Circle Community, our async knowledge base. Every week we do a meetup focused on some topic (e.g. a chapter of the book) and occasionally we even manage to catch up in person. 
I have extensive dev community moderation experience having served the 200k-strong /r/reactjs community and started the Svelte Society global movement.
Whether you're interested in book discussion, bouncing ideas, seeing early drafts of people's work (including mine!) or job postings, you'll find someone to talk about your career with.
Note: This is a professional community. Participation is subject to a Code of Conduct. You will be removed if you repeatedly violate it.
Pricing
Free Chapters
Most Popular
Community Package
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The Coding Career Handbook
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Audio book + Bibliography (Learn more)
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Chat with author and readers! Lifetime access to Community + Discord
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Get more out of every chapter with 3 hours of Author Commentary in HQ recorded video
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Learn how to write a book like this with 10 Hours of Recorded Livestreams
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All future editions (v2 coming in 2022)
No Credit Card? Use Paypal/Gumroad ↗️
Book Only
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The Coding Career Handbook
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450+ pages of Career Guides, Principles, Strategies, and Tactics in PDF + EPUB + MOBI
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All updates to v1 edition
About the author
Hello, I'm @swyx! I started this project because I noticed a severe lack of advice about going from Junior to Senior in dev careers.
I've climbed the career ladder twice - first going from sell-side junior trader to buy-side hedge fund analyst, then again from doing freeCodeCamp at age 30 to working as a Senior (L6) at Netlify and AWS. I am now Head of Developer Experience at Temporal.io.
I've helped hundreds of thousands of developers via my writing, speaking, teaching and Twitter and decided the only way to really scale my advice is to write down the best of it in a book and offer it to those who care enough to invest in their professional growth.
You can find the usual biographical stuff on my About page.
Frequently asked questions
Tell me more about the Coding Career Community!
Ever feel like you didn’t have anyone outside work to talk to about your career?
The Coding Career Community has two parts: a moderated Discord (realtime live chat) and Circle community (async knowledge base). Membership is for life — Engage as much or as little as you need. We'll be here for you.
I have extensive dev community moderation experience having served the 200k-strong /r/reactjs community and started the Svelte Society global movement. We are active with new topics every day. Ask questions, get feedback, find jobs and collaborators, and use as a friendly resource as you build your coding career!
Note: This is a professional community. Participation is subject to a Code of Conduct. You will be removed if you repeatedly violate it.
Buy NowDo you do Purchasing Power Parity?
We use Stripe to process payments, and unfortunately PPP is not supported at this time. If you have particular special needs, feel free to get in touch to work something out.
How can I get future updates?
Upon purchase, you will be invited to create a Circle account. You can use this to login and download your purchases any time (You can log in here). We will email you every time a new edition of the book comes out!
Refund Policy? Upgrades?
Yes, 30 days, no questions asked (but feedback greatly appreciated!). Same goes if you buy a package and want to upgrade – just email me and you can pay the difference.
Is there any DRM? Team plans?
No DRM, you should enjoy a hassle-free experience! If you purchase an individual license, please respect the license terms and do not distribute any copies.
Team licenses are available:
- Handbook ( , , )
- Community Package ( , )
If you are a team lead going through the book, I also offer a 60 minute Q&A session on request.
Can I use Paypal? Gumroad?
Stripe doesn't support Paypal, so we have setup a Gumroad mirror that can take payments there! Please contact swyx@hey.com if you need some other payment method.
What format are the files?
- The Coding Career Handbook is available in PDF, EPUB and MOBI at all 3 tiers. There is no physical print version - yet.
- The Bibliography extracts the 1400+ external links referenced in the book to help those using e-reader devices follow along on mobile.
- The 10 Hour Audiobook version is available with the Community Package as a zip of mp3 files. Here is a sample audio chapter!
- The Creator Workshops come with 5 hours of extra Author Commentary, 10 hours of livestreamed writing process, and many more hours of recorded Workshops, all in .mp4 files.
I have another question!
Shoot me an email at swyx@swyx.io or tweet me @swyx!
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