yusufaytas

Productivity systems for engineers and managers: setting goals, building focus habits, turning intention into consistent output.

What software engineering looks like under production pressure: debugging hard problems, handling incidents, managing overload, building for reliability.

How to build and execute an engineering strategy: setting technical direction, sequencing work, managing roadmap pressure, and making real trade-offs.

How to run an engineering team: structure, delivery systems, onboarding engineers, building culture, and the mechanics that make organizations work.

Software system design in practice: drawing boundaries, managing state, designing APIs and data contracts, handling overload, and distributed trade-offs.

Software engineering career advice that holds up: how to read career signals, manage your boss, navigate interviews, and build a long career well.

The hidden costs slowing engineering teams down: cognitive load, process bottlenecks, status theatre, context switching, and the tax that drains velocity.

A practical guide to becoming an engineering manager: why people pursue it, what the identity shift feels like, and what first-time managers miss.

I’ve started moving off WordPress to Yapress. It’s a Git-managed static setup with a migration script, though I haven’t run the full migration yet. Right now, I’m testing the setup and validating the workflow.

The trade-off seems reasonable so far. By going static, the main thing I lose is comments.

The project is still in progress, but I made solid progress over the weekend.

The project is here: https://github.com/yusufaytas/yapress

https://yusufaytas.com

on leadership in tech and software development

I’m working on OpsOrch(https://www.opsorch.com/), an open-source orchestration layer that provides a single API across incidents, logs, metrics, tickets, messaging, and service metadata.

It sits on top of existing tools like PagerDuty, Jira, Prometheus, Elasticsearch, and Slack, and normalizes them into a shared schema. It doesn’t store operational data, it just brokers requests through pluggable adapters and returns unified structures.

The motivation came from incident response workflows that still require hopping across multiple vendor UIs and APIs with different auth models and query languages. Instead of another “single pane of glass,” this is meant to be a small, transparent glue layer.

On top of the core service, I’m also exposing everything via an MCP server so LLM agents can query incidents, metrics, and logs as typed tools without needing vendor-specific knowledge.

Currently open source, written mostly in Go and TypeScript. Still early, but usable with PagerDuty, Jira, Prometheus, Elasticsearch, Slack, and mock providers. Feedback from SREs and infra folks has been very helpful so far.

Todo/Habit/Challenge Tracker https://www.caccepted.com

Oh, wow! I’d never made that connection. Thanks for pointing it out! You’re right, they do seem really similar, and it makes sense there’d be some cultural exchange around tea and communal brewing traditions.

Currently working on promoting Software Engineering Handbook (https://softwareengineeringhandbook.com/), a book that goes beyond typical technical guides by addressing both the technical and life aspects of being a software engineer.

Marketing it on Amazon, LinkedIn, and Reddit. It's slow but I'm making progress.

I found An Entire MBA in 1 Course really helpful. It actually goes through core business principles, covering everything from marketing and strategy to finance. https://www.udemy.com/course/an-entire-mba-in-1-courseaward-...

It looks like marketing within large companies is vastly different from marketing for smaller initiatives.

Thanks for the questions! I hear you it does sound like a generic book name. Well, we have the domain and we couldn't really name it to something else as we think software engineering has many elements and we wanted to cover them.

Our book isn't just a technical book on software development. Instead, it goes into the life aspects of being a software engineer such as migration and parenting.

Many of us have wished for mentors who could guide us beyond the technicalities, offering insights into personal growth and career navigation. Recognizing this gap, we've created a resource that provides practical wisdom.

By taking a holistic approach to software engineering, we address both personal and professional development in a way that few other books do. This unique blend sets our book apart, offering a clear differentiator that defines our brand.

I’m working on marketing https://softwareengineeringhandbook.com/

We’ve experimented with various approaches to promotion, including HN, KDP, Amazon Ads, and most recently Reddit Ads. It's been interesting to see which strategies resonate with the audience, but we're still figuring out the best way to get it in front of the right people.

And marketing is really hard!

I totally understand your frustration. We started writing our book long before(2022) AI became mainstream, and when we finally published it on May 2024, all we hear now is people asking if it's just AI-generated content. It’s sad to see how quickly the conversation shifts away from the human touch in writing.

Thanks for the kind words! We appreciate your suggestion, but we haven’t considered making the ebook public domain. Our goal is to provide real value with the content, and we believe the pricing reflects that.

We might consider it making it down the line!

Our perspective is valuable because we’ve gained extensive experience across both Europe and the U.S., working in startups and renowned companies. I (Yusuf) have worked with Amazon, Workday, and TripAdvisor, while Ender has worked at Microsoft, Meta, and Uber.

Our combined expertise spans multiple industries, leadership roles, and technical challenges, making Software Engineering Handbook a unique blend of insights from both continents. This diversity helps us provide practical, well-rounded advice for engineers looking to excel in their careers.

You can check out buying options on platforms like Google, Amazon, and Apple, all of which provide sample chapters for you to review before purchasing. Thanks for checking it out!

Thank you! This book isn't just a technical one. It's unique because it covers more than just software development, it goes into the life aspects of being a software engineer from migration challenges to balancing work as a parent.

We often lack mentors who guide us beyond the technical matters. In our careers, we wished having such mentors. In this book, we try to offer practical wisdom and answers to questions you may not even know you had.

It’s a holistic approach to software engineering, addressing both personal and professional growth in a way few other books do.

Hey HN,

I and Ender have written a Software Engineering Handbook that covers key topics in software development, including best practices, design principles, and leadership advice for engineers. I’m now looking to sell it, but I'm unsure of the best approach to get it in front of the right audience.

I’d love to hear your suggestions on:

=> Marketing strategies for technical books

=> Approaches for building a community or audience around this type of content

=> Pricing models that have worked for you

Any advice or experiences from others who have successfully sold technical content would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

Hi there! We published our book(https://softwareengineeringhandbook.com/) in May 2024, but getting visibility has been a challenge. We've posted on HN before and are currently using Amazon ads, but the results have been underwhelming so far. Any advice or strategies for improving our reach would be greatly appreciated!

I get your concern about proliferation in mentorship books. We combined our real life experiences in this book. We blended with our work experience in startups and large organizations.

Hello HN,

We’re excited to share our newly published book with you, and we’d like to tell you a bit about our journey.

Ender and I have been friends since school. We attended classes together, collaborated on projects, and eventually graduated. Our paths diverged when he moved to the United States and I relocated to Ireland, but our friendship remained strong. Throughout our careers, we tackled various side hustles and learned a lot from our jobs.

One thing we always felt was missing was a mentor, someone we would love to freely ask questions and get answers, not just about software engineering, but about life in general. We didn’t always make the best decisions, both professionally and personally, and we realized how beneficial it would have been to have guidance.

In June 2022, during one of our calls, we talked about the value of having such a mentor. That conversation sparked the idea for this project. We decided to write a book encompassing everything we believe is crucial for both work and life.

We’re now excited to share our book with you and hope it serves as the mentor we wished we had.

Looking forward to your feedback and thoughts!

On this website, I post about software development, personal opinions, daily observations, and hobbies.

https://www.yusufaytas.com

https://www.yusufaytas.com I write about tech and other stuff since 2000s

https://www.yusufaytas.com

The harsh reality of staff/principal engineering positions is the number of opportunities. There are a handful of companies that are big enough to have roles beyond senior engineers. In those big corporations, there are a few roles available and they are rarely open. Therefore, moving from one company to another is just so damn hard. There are more senior manager/director level roles than a principal engineering role where you oversee multiple teams or a department. If you want to make it to management, your best bet might be your own company or a startup. Happy to hear about your findings.