Late 2023 Reading Sprint and What It Changed in My Engineering Work

In late 2023, right after November 7, I went into a deep reading sprint.

I did not treat it as a hobby phase. I used it as structured input for how I wanted to work in 2024: better engineering judgment, better focus, and better team decisions.

Books that stood out in Nov-Dec 2023

• Quiet by Susan Cain (5/5)
• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson (2/5)
• Daring Greatly by Brené Brown (4/5)
• The Last Question by Isaac Asimov (3/5)
• Range by David Epstein (3/5)
• Good to Great by Jim Collins (4/5)
• Eight Dates by John Gottman (3/5)

What changed in my engineering mindset

1. Focus became a delivery strategy. Too many parallel threads kill quality.
2. Product trust became explicit. If the output is uncertain, UX must say so.
3. Generalist thinking became an advantage. AI + mobile work is cross-domain by default.
4. Leadership means reducing noise. Teams ship faster when priorities are obvious.

How that translated into work

• Smaller scopes and clearer release criteria.
• Better failure-mode handling in iOS flows.
• More deliberate AI feature evaluation before launch.
• Fewer initiatives, stronger follow-through.

This reading block is one reason 2024 felt more intentional than reactive.