Software Engineering at Google Audiobook By Titus Winters, Tom Manshreck, Hyrum Wright cover art

Software Engineering at Google

Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Software Engineering at Google

By: Titus Winters, Tom Manshreck, Hyrum Wright
Narrated by: Mark Sando
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.79

Buy for $25.79

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Newly adapted for audiobook listeners.

Today, software engineers need to know not only how to program effectively but also how to develop proper engineering practices to make their codebase sustainable and healthy. This book emphasizes this difference between programming and software engineering.

How can software engineers manage a living codebase that evolves and responds to changing requirements and demands over the length of its life? Based on their experience at Google, software engineers Titus Winters and Hyrum Wright, along with technical writer Tom Manshreck, present a candid and insightful look at how some of the world’s leading practitioners construct and maintain software. This book covers Google’s unique engineering culture, processes, and tools and how these aspects contribute to the effectiveness of an engineering organization.

You’ll explore three fundamental principles that software organizations should keep in mind when designing, architecting, writing, and maintaining code:

  • How time affects the sustainability of software and how to make your code resilient over time
  • How scale affects the viability of software practices within an engineering organization
  • What trade-offs a typical engineer needs to make when evaluating design and development decisions
©2020 Google, LLC (P)2021 Upfront Books
Engineering Programming & Software Development Software Development Software Programming Software Architecture
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Featured Article: The Best Audiobooks and Podcasts for Programmers


If you’re looking for the best audiobooks and podcasts about programming, you might be a programmer looking for resources and new perspectives to expand your knowledge. Or maybe you’re a newcomer still wondering if it's even possible to learn how to program from a book. Whether you’re brand new to programming or you’ve been fluent in Python, Java, C#, and the like for years, there are tons of great audio resources available to help you hone your skills.

What listeners say about Software Engineering at Google

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    152
  • 4 Stars
    40
  • 3 Stars
    13
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    4
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    125
  • 4 Stars
    36
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    3
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    119
  • 4 Stars
    33
  • 3 Stars
    13
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    6

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Still useful at smaller Eng org sizes

Though this book lays out what Google does (a company with perhaps no comparison) a lot of the principles are generally applicable. I was pleasantly surprised by this and have found several applications for my own Eng org.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Works Well As An Audiobook

A lot of software engineering books can be difficult to understand in audiobook format because of reliance on code snippets or diagrams. But this book worked well. The chapters were clear and topical. The challenges and solutions were well articulated.

As a software engineer myself, I found the chapters on testing and dependencies particularly incisive. I hadn’t thought much about the limitations and lossy behavior of semantic versioning until reading this book.

Final nit and personal opinion: the narrator makes the content sound really stuffy and elitist. You kind of get used to it though, and the depth of content does make it worthwhile.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

little bit didactic

It's IT wold. And that maybe because best practices so quickly copy by others. and that because "at Google" with such manner like "only at Google" not so anymore.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Surprisingly good as an audiobook

My main fear was that it wouldn’t not be very listenable as an audio book. But it is actually nice. Would definitely recommend to give it a try.

The content is cool too, though I noticed some minor things (such as saying “we at google” too often, which gets on nerves a little). The book gives a great overview of internal tooling, processes, and reasoning behind some decisions/approaches.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent distillation of decades of experience

Excellent distillation of decades of experience creating and running a massive software enterprise. Highly recommended!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Details of a well run engineering group

Great book! Google has a lot of experience making software. With their size, they have had to explore every bit of waste that comes up in development. nice to hear the challenges they have are shared by smaller companies (I think, anyway), and to then hear how they dealt with it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Currently the best book on software engineering

I really wish every software engineer would read this. The most interesting parts are the level of collaboration between engineers and how much broader their job is than only coding.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Too long & naive

This book is for Google fan boys, who think that Google has it all figured out already. Some of the ideas are reoccurring, some internal tool descriptions are irrelevant unless you work there (like how the code review tool's screens look like), some explanations/suggestions around oss process are unrealistic & naive etc. In many many cases it directly contradicts things like the DORA report etc.

Do yourself a favor and don't buy the book. It's a complete waste of time

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Google: Be Evil

This is very much a paean of praise on behalf of and by Google for itself. That is spends so much of the book self-congratulating itself for equity and fairness whilst in reality purging dissenting voices, such as James Damore, at least is gppd for a chuckle.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

not useful

This was recommended for interview prep. Nothing in this book would have helped in any of my interviews.

A lot of disclaimers in the beginning, then proceeds to talk about attitude for a long while and practically claim the Google way is the best way for the rest of the book, but requires Google special sauce and internal-only tools.
They repeat "built to scale" a million times and use it as an excuse and reason for almost anything.

the narration is well done.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

19 people found this helpful