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Dr. Cat Hicks is a category of one."
"The whole thing is stellar. Five stars.
This book could be the "Accelerate" of the agentic era. It's one thing to have opinions, and entirely a different thing to have opinions **backed by research.**
Anyone who cares about software should read it.
- Charity Majors, Cofounder & CTO at honeycomb.io
If you lead engineers and believe culture is ‘soft,’ this book will disabuse you of that notion quickly. Psychological safety, learning, and collaboration aren’t perks, they are infrastructure. Ignore them and your systems will fail, slowly or catastrophically.
- Scott Hanselman, VP of Developer Community, Microsoft
It is quite possibly the best software development book about teams that I have ever read. Each paragraph has some insightful nugget and relates so well to the real world. Highly recommend!
- Carol Willing, Python Core Developer, 3-term steering council member
One of my most gifted [former] co-workers at Google has written an incredibly insightful book on the psychology of software. Very nerdy, very wonderful. It's worth a read if you care about scientifically based ways to best manage software teams
- Mary Kate Stimmler, Fellow at the Stanford Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences (CASBS)
If you work in tech or if you work with people who work in tech, preorder this book. Just do it. I have no doubt that you will better for it, and I’m pretty sure the world will be better for it.
- Bryan Guffey
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The Psychology of Software Teams is essential reading for anyone engaged in building, supporting, or growing software teams.
My favorite chapter is Chapter 3, where you bring the receipts that nuke the "10x developer" and "l33tcode" myths from orbit, leaving them both a smoking crater in the ground. 👏
- Eli Israel, Managing Partner, Gartner Consulting
Like everyone else with a lick of sense in this dumbass software business, I have pre-ordered [Cat's] 's book.
- @oisin@mastodon.ie
Cat Hicks knows more about the human dynamics of software teams than anyone else I have ever known. Can't wait to read her new book. If you work with developers, this is the user manual you've been looking for.
- Adam Zimman, author of Progressive Delivery
I’ve never read a book with such high levels of dense content, as in 0 fluff and filler.
It makes it impossible to highlight a section to refer to later because nearly every paragraph was revelatory.
- David Amor, Principal FPGA Engineer
...another thing I love about this book: the evidence base (from studies spanning decades) is rigorous and richly framed, but Cat sets it alongside the lived experiences of developers to help illuminate and validate their insights -- instead of positioning the science as truth from on high that overrules lived experience....a masterclass in science writing!
- Shern Tee, PhD, Senior Developer & science communicator
Never have I felt so well understood in my job as a manager of engineering teams.
- Sasha Göbbels, Senior Engineering Manager
