Sign-In
Cart
Running Start: How to get a job in tech, keep that job, and thrive
Hardcover
Publisher Price: $49.00
ISBN13: 9780578387390
Publisher: Alex Karp
Published: May 20 2022
Pages: 172
Weight: 0.76
Height: 0.44 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
You're looking for your first software engineering job. Maybe you're graduating college or maybe you've decided to switch careers. Maybe you're finishing up at a coding bootcamp or maybe you taught yourself how to code.
You've come to the right place.
Getting a job is hard. Getting the right job is harder.
- How do I know which companies and positions to apply for?
- How do I get an interview?
- How do I prepare for my interviews?
- How do I look for red flags that should turn me away from a company?
- How do I navigate one or more offers?
But once you've gotten the job, the fun is just beginning. Now you have questions like:
- How do I make a good first impression?
- How do I set myself up for success?
- Am I moving too slowly?
- What's my manager thinking?
- I can't do this. I'm in over my head. Are they going to fire me?
And even once you're feeling comfortable in your new role, you'll have yet more questions.
- What should I be doing to get promoted?
- How do I identify growth opportunities?
- Where do I want my career to lead?
- When is it time to look for a new job?
These are all real questions that I've asked myself throughout my career. These are the things that I wish I would have known when I was first starting out and even as I've progressed.
I've learned a lot the hard way, by making mistakes and learning from others. In my last several years as an engineering manager, I've also learned a lot about what your manager thinks, how to use your manager effectively, and how to navigate your career. And I've been taking notes.
Are you interested in a strategy guide for your software engineering career?
What if you could learn from my mistakes and insights and grow faster in your career?
What if you knew how to avoid opportunities that would hold you back or would even be toxic?
What if you knew how to take what it is that makes you unique and make that your biggest selling point?
That's why I wrote Running Start.
My goal is to help you get a job, keep that job, and thrive. Not only in that first job, but in your entire career.
My target audience is anyone who isn't stereotypically represented in tech, including but not limited to: women, BIPOCs, self-taught, career switchers, bootcamp graduates, and many more. But I also hope that this book will be useful to anyone in tech.
With that in mind, I took great care to make sure point out where people's experiences might differ from the norm. I also tried to get as diverse a set of pre-readers as possible to really hold me accountable for making sure I do right by all backgrounds and experiences.
My goal is to get as many different people in tech as possible. Not because of some artificial diversity targets but because I truly believe that the best teams are the ones that are the most diverse. Not only that, but the teams that have the most different kinds of diversity. It takes a village to be a truly successful development team. You need people from different backgrounds, with different life experiences, different skillsets, different abilities and disabilities. The more diverse a team is, the better a product they'll put out. I'd bet a million dollars on it.
This book is my way of trying to help make that happen.
Also in
Programming
Interactive Theorem Proving and Program Development: Coq'art: The Calculus of Inductive Constructions
Bertot, Yves
Castéran, Pierre
Hardcover
The Legend of Zelda(tm) Tears of the Kingdom - The Complete Official Guide: Collector's Edition
Piggyback
Hardcover
Python Crash Course, 3rd Edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming
Matthes, Eric
Paperback
The Legend of Zelda(tm) Tears of the Kingdom - The Complete Official Guide: Standard Edition
Piggyback
Paperback
Crisis Engineering: Time-Tested Tools for Turning Chaos Into Clarity
Dickerson, Mikey
Nitze, Marina
Weaver, Matthew
Paperback
Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations
Forsgren Phd, Nicole
Humble, Jez
Kim, Gene
Paperback
Embedded Systems with ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers in Assembly Language and C: Fourth Edition
Zhu, Yifeng
Paperback
Make: Electronics: Learning by Discovery: A Hands-On Primer for the New Electronics Enthusiast
Platt, Charles
Paperback
Fundamentals of Software Architecture: A Modern Engineering Approach
Ford, Neal
Richards, Mark
Paperback
Vibe Coding: Building Production-Grade Software with Genai, Chat, Agents, and Beyond
Yegge, Steve
Kim, Gene
Paperback
The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
Fournier, Camille
Paperback
AI Projects with Raspberry Pi: High-Performance Artificial Intelligence for Robotics, Security, Home Automation, and Vision
Hattersley, Lucy
Jepson, Brian
Paperback
I Have an App Idea: The Essential Guide to Building an App Without Tech Skills
Spann, Amanda
Paperback
The Return on AI: From Promise to Profit in the Age of Intelligent Business
Mittal, Ashwin
Sawhney, Mohanbir
Paperback
The Devops Handbook, 2nd Edition: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, & Security in Technology Organizations
Kim, Gene
Humble, Jez
Debois, Patrick
Paperback
The Staff Engineer's Path: A Guide for Individual Contributors Navigating Growth and Change
Reilly, Tanya
Paperback
The Developer's Guide to AI: A Field Guide for the Working Developer
Thompson, Danny
Orshalick, Jacob
Reghunadh, Jerry M.
Paperback
Building Applications with AI Agents: Designing and Implementing Multiagent Systems
Albada, Michael
Paperback
Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems
Leng, Christof
Beyer, Betsy
Jones, Chris
Paperback
Software Architecture: The Hard Parts: Modern Trade-Off Analyses for Distributed Architectures
Ford, Neal
Richards, Mark
Sadalage, Pramod
Paperback
Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
McDowell, Gayle Laakmann
Paperback
Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence
Majors, Charity
Fong-Jones, Liz
Miranda, George
Paperback
Forecasting: Principles and Practice, the Pythonic Way
Athanasopoulos, George
Hyndman, Rob J.
Paperback
Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to Html, Css, Javascript, and Web Images
Robbins, Jennifer
Paperback
Building Safer Technology: A Field Guide to Failing Well
Kissner, Lea
Zunger, Yonatan
Coles, Neil
Paperback
The New AI Cold War: Liberty vs. Tyranny in the Age of Machine Empires
Maginnis, Ltc Robert L.
Paperback
Linux Basics for Hackers, 2nd Edition: Getting Started with Networking, Scripting, and Security in Kali
Occupytheweb
Paperback
The Pragmatic Programmer: Your Journey to Mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition
Thomas, David
Hunt, Andrew
Hardcover
SQL QuickStart Guide: The Simplified Beginner's Guide to Managing, Analyzing, and Manipulating Data With SQL
Shields, Walter
Hardcover
A Human's Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives and How We Can Stay in Control
Hosanagar, Kartik
Paperback
Grokking Algorithms, Second Edition: An Illustrated Guide for Programmers and Other Curious People
Bhargava, Aditya Y.
Paperback
The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2026: Astounding Projects with Raspberry Pi Computers
Makers of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine, The
Paperback
Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science
Graham, Ronald
Patashnik, Oren
Knuth, Donald
Hardcover
Generative AI Design Patterns: Solutions to Common Challenges When Building Genai Agents and Applications
Lakshmanan, Valliappa
Hapke, Hannes
Paperback
Learning Domain-Driven Design: Aligning Software Architecture and Business Strategy
Khononov, Vlad
Paperback
Building Resilient Distributed Systems: Patterns and Practices for Stable Software
Newman, Sam
Paperback
Head First Design Patterns: Building Extensible and Maintainable Object-Oriented Software
Robson, Elisabeth
Freeman, Eric
Paperback
The Software Architect Elevator: Redefining the Architect's Role in the Digital Enterprise
Hohpe, Gregor
Paperback
Learning Generative AI Tools for Excel: Speed Up Your Everyday Tasks with Microsoft Excel, Copilot, Chatgpt, and Beyond
Duca, Angelica Lo
Paperback
Java in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference
Evans, Benjamin J.
Clark, Jason R.
Flanagan, David
Paperback
Signals & Levers: Systems Thinking Tools to Unblock Software Delivery
Hendrickson, Elisabeth
Tosi, Joel
Paperback
Arduino Programming for Beginners: A Comprehensive Beginner's Guide to Learn the Realms of Arduino Programming from A-Z
Protosmith, Ada
Paperback
Building AI-Powered Products: The Essential Guide to AI and Genai Product Management
Nika, Marily
Paperback
Build an AI Agent (from Scratch): Agents That Reason, Plan, and ACT Autonomously
Hur, Jungjun
Song, Younghee
Paperback
Debugging: The 9 Indispensable Rules for Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems
Agans, David J.
Paperback
Inteligencia Artificial Con Python: Sistemas de aprendizaje, Machine Learning y Deep Learning explicados de forma clara y práctica.
Selles Rodenas, Juan Ignacio
Paperback
AI Agents with MCP: Model Context Protocol for Building Clients, Servers, and End-To-End Agents
Stratis, Kyle
Paperback
Frictionless: 7 Steps to Remove Barriers, Unlock Value, and Outpace Your Competition in the AI Era
Noda, Abi
Forsgren, Nicole
Paperback
Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time
Wright, Hyrum
Winters, Titus
Manshreck, Tom
Paperback
Living a Jewish Life, Revised and Updated: Jewish Traditions, Customs, and Values for Today's Families
Cooper, Howard
Diamant, Anita
Paperback
Learning Php, MySQL & JavaScript: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites
Nixon, Robin
Paperback
Programming Massively Parallel Processors: A Hands-On Approach
El Hajj, Izzat
Hwu, Wen-Mei W.
Kirk, David B.
Paperback
Python Programming for Young Coders: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Coding for Beginners, Kids, and Teens
Pandey, Anand
Paperback
Adobe Photoshop, 2nd Edition: A Complete Course and Compendium of Features
Laskevitch, Stephen
Paperback
Evals for AI Engineers: Systematically Measuring and Improving AI Applications
Shankar, Shreya
Husain, Hamel
Paperback
Certified Associate in Project Management (Capm)(R) Exam Official Cert Guide
Kanabar, Vijay
Thomas, Arthur
Lechler, Thomas
Paperback
Computer Science from Scratch: Building Interpreters, Art, Emulators and ML in Python
Kopec, David
Paperback
Kubernetes in Action, Second Edition: Deploying and Managing Containers and Cloud-Native Applications
Conner, Kevin
Luksa, Marko
Paperback