“I've been reading Writing for Software Developers and it's SO GOOD. I'm only 70 pages in and I've already learned a ton 💯”
Learn how to craft and publish technical articles with structured advice and expert interviews.
In my first year of writing, I reached 100,000+ readers worldwide, met my heroes, and paid my rent with content. Writing for Software Developers will help you do the same.
Why do you want to write technical content? I started out selling technical articles for less than $100 each but 10X'd my rate in under 2 years. Beyond the direct income, a portfolio of published writing can give you a leg up toward earning a raise, landing a job, or reaching new clients or customers.
Today, I write to learn and to grow as a developer. But I also write to earn money, make connections, and grow my audience.
Writing for Software Developers outlines my own method for writing technical content:
By following the principles in this book, you will become a better writer — and structured practice of quality techniques will help you get there faster.
Featuring interviews with 11 great writers
Indie Hackers
Courtland Allen is the founder of Indie Hackers, an online community for people working on independent bootstrapped businesses. Indie Hackers, now owned by Stripe, has been a source of knowledge and inspiration to me throughout the process of writing this book. Allen has interviewed over five hundred founders for his site and podcast.
Discourse, Stack Overflow, Coding Horror
Jeff Atwood is the writer of Coding Horror (one of the internet's longest-running and most popular technical blogs), co-founder of Stack Overflow and the Stack Exchange network (one of the 100 highest-traffic sites in the United States), and co-founder of Discourse (a provider of open-source forum software aiming to improve the state of online communication).
Scotch.io
Chris on Code started scotch.io with his childhood friend Nick Cerminara to publish articles and courses on front-end development. Under his care, the site grew to four million monthly page views and published over five hundred guest authors before he sold Scotch to Digital Ocean in late 2019. He joined the company as a web community manager.
Cooper Press
Peter Cooper runs Cooper Press, a publisher of a dozen email newsletters with a combined distribution of almost half a million developers at the time of writing. He reads countless technical articles in search of the best content to share with his subscribers.
Former Director of Content at Linode
Angel Guarisma eats, sleeps, and breathes documentation. At the time of our interview, he was the Director of Content at Linode, a cloud computing company with a major presence in the open source community. At Linode, Guarisma led a team of technical writers and editors to publish wide-ranging and comprehensive tutorials and documentation.
Money Stuff at Bloomberg
Matt Levine is a columnist at Bloomberg where he writes Money Stuff, an incredibly popular weekday newsletter on finance that is widely read in the tech sector. Previously, he wrote at Dealbreaker, and he has written for The Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, and NPR. While his substantial experience is entirely outside writing about software, his techniques and insights are applicable to the work we do.
Go by Example
Mark McGranaghan created Go by Example, a website for teaching the programming language Go. Go by Example drew attention for its two-column design and quality example code. Today, he works at Ink & Switch, a research lab that produces reports and spin-off companies in consumer software.
@patio11, Kalzumeus
Patrick McKenzie has been writing on his website, kalzumeus.com, since 2006. He has written over five hundred articles about lessons learned working on Bingo Card Creator, Appointment Reminder, and Starfighter, consulting for software companies on engineering and marketing, and most recently working on Atlas for Stripe. He is also the third highest-ranked user of all time by upvotes on Hacker News.
Hello Web Books
Tracy Osborn is a writer and conference speaker. She has published three books under the "Hello Web" series: Hello Web App, Hello Web App Intermediate Concepts, and Hello Web Design. She is a frequent speaker at numerous events, writes extensively on her personal website, and currently works at TinySeed.
The Good Parts of AWS
Daniel Vassallo worked at AWS for eight years. After quitting to work for himself, one of the first things he created was the self-published ebook The Good Parts of AWS, with Josh Pschorr. Thanks in large part to Vassallo's audience on Twitter, which he earned by sharing detailed insights into his work, the book sold thousands of copies in its first three months on the market, generating over $50,000 in revenue.
International Keynote Speaker
Cassidy Williams has spent years working in developer evangelism, speaking at dozens of conferences, and writing technical content, including the Stack Overflow newsletter. At the time of the interview, she taught with React Training. She publishes a weekly newsletter, rendezvous with cassidoo.
Beyond the book
Free resources to advance your career in technical writing. Get started by finding great community writer programs, publishers, and publications to work with, advance your skills, and connect with other writers who code and coders who write.
Try before you buy with two free chapters:
Writing is a professional skill that makes literally every professional more dangerous, in much the same way that learning to code does. I heartily endorse leveling up at it, for everyone.
One thing doesn’t seem right: I was prepared to spend 2-3x.
Right now I’m reading @philip_kiely’s Writing for Software Developers and it’s great! Lots of great mechanisms for validating ideas, writing, and editing.
Writing is a professional skill that makes literally every professional more dangerous, in much the same way that learning to code does. I heartily endorse leveling up at it, for everyone.
Just bought Writing for Software Developers by @philip_kiely. Can’t wait to read it.
One thing doesn’t seem right: I was prepared to spend 2-3x.
I want to highlight some books that helped improving my writing and process ... Writing for software devs by @philip_kiely
Right now I’m reading @philip_kiely’s Writing for Software Developers and it’s great! Lots of great mechanisms for validating ideas, writing, and editing.
Inspiring talk about "Writing for Software Developers" by @philip_kiely on @seradio
Yes! Writing for Software Developers takes you through my process, one step at a time, and helps you create and publish your first article.
Yes! If you have already written and published technical content, you will enjoy the nuances of the eleven expert interviews and extract key insights from the main text.
Not as much as you might think. I started writing technical content as a junior in college, less than two years after I started programming. Many of the code examples I used in articles were based on projects that I had worked on much earlier in my journey toward becoming a software engineer.
Yes! Your purchase of Writing for Software Developers includes an audiobook version narrated by Griffin Mareske. The audiobook is 6 hours and 35 minutes long and does not include the appendices, images, or code snippets.
If you want to share the book with your team, company, or class, please purchase a team license. If you purchase an individual copy, please respect the license terms and do not distribute any copies.
Purchase a team license for $136.
Yes, PPP discounts are available! If you live in a country where the cost of living is substantially lower than the United States, you can buy the book at an appropriate discount.
Purchase with PPP on Gumroad.
If you can’t afford the book, I’ll give you a PDF copy for free. I only ask that once you use the skills taught in this book to make money, please come back and buy a copy for a friend.
Request a free copy at philip@wfsd.com.
I have a 30-day no-questions-asked refund policy. If you don’t like your purchase, let me know and I will refund your money. If you’re not sure if the book is for you, start by reading two sample chapters for free!
Send me an email at philip@wfsd.com.
Hey there! I'm Philip Kiely, author of
Writing for Software Developers.
In Spring 2019, I started writing technical tutorials. After noticing my success publishing tens of thousands of words of technical content, friends and co-workers started asking me how they could do the same. Their interest inspired me to write this book.
I published Writing for Software Developers on May 12, 2020, six days before my virtual college graduation ceremony, where I received a B.A. with honors in computer science from Grinnell College.
Today, I work at Baseten across developer relations, technical content, and documentation. You may have heard me on Code Newbie, Side Hustle School, Software Engineering Radio, or another show. Outside of work, I'm a lifelong martial artist (currently studying Jiu Jitsu), an avid reader, and a dedicated football fan. I currently live in downtown Chicago.
