Software Engineering at Google

I really loved the insights this book provides about the design, structure, and implementation of high level services in their large scale software engineering build. Great information, enough details for people familiar with some aspects of software engineering already, and thorough enough to paint more than a broad picture. 5/5

I really enjoyed most of the parts of this book, especially how the Google way of doing looks like.



So what have I learned from this book? One of the first things is, that when you throw enough money at a problem, even ideas like a company-wide trunk-based mono repository works. It just requires to build basically all of the tooling yourself, just to solve another problem, that is the trait-off by another decision.

This book demonstrated why Google's engineering quality is consistently miles ahead of distant seconds. It is not 'just because' after they've become successful. It was a deliberate and conscious decision since the very beginning. Many people hold the belief that when their company became as successful as Google, then could they start doing the 'nice engineering stuff'. This book would prove them wrong.

It has something for everyone, regardless of one's seniority or track (IC/M). Most of the chapters are brilliantly written and well edited. Many warrant multiple re-reads in the course of one's career. My copy was a lease from my local library, but I'll definitely order a physical copy.