By Gergely Orosz, the author of The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter and Building Mobile Apps at Scale
Navigating senior, tech lead, staff and principal positions at tech companies and startups. An Amazon #1 Best Seller. New: the hardcover is out! As is the audibook. Now available in 6 languages.
The underlying technology prioritizes linguistic and cultural markers. Hosts in the Desi Exclusive category are often verified or "Exclusive" agents who speak Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, or regional dialects. The algorithm matches users to these hosts based on:
For many users, particularly those in the Gulf diaspora or rural South Asia, global English-centric platforms can be alienating. A platform where a user can speak in their mother tongue creates an immediate psychological bond.
The term "desi" refers to people and cultures from the Indian subcontinent, including India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. On Chamet, "desi exclusive" content typically refers to:
You cannot search "Desi Exclusive" on Chamet directly. The magic happens on . Top hosts announce: "Live on Chamet now. Desi exclusive room. 1v1 active." Their followers use specific gift IDs to join the queue. This "Backstage" access creates the exclusivity.
: While Chamet has automated monitoring, the "Desi Exclusive" sections can sometimes push the boundaries of the app’s community guidelines. Data Usage
The "Desi Exclusive" tags often have hidden, ugly filters. It is common to see descriptions like "Fair skin only" or specific caste requests, mirroring the worst parts of South Asian society. This has led to bans and community boycotts.
: Hosts use built-in 720p HD filters and stickers to enhance their visual presentation during live sessions. The Creator Economy & Monetization
Looking for authentic conversations with a desi touch? Join – a special space on Chamet where culture, charm, and real connections come alive.
The book is separated into six standalone parts, each part covering several chapters:
Parts 1 and 6 apply to all engineering levels: from entry-level software developers to principal or above engineers. Parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 cover increasingly senior engineering levels. These four parts group topics in chapters – such as ones on software engineering, collaboration, getting things done, and so on.
This book is more of a reference book that you can refer back to, as you grow in your career. I suggest skimming over the career levels and chapters that you are familiar with, and focus reading on topics you struggle with, or career levels where you are aiming to get to. Keep in mind that expectations can vary greatly between companies.
In this book, I’ve aimed to align the topics and leveling definitions closer to what is typical at Big Tech and scaleups: but you might find some of the topics relevant for lower career levels in later chapters. For example, we cover logging, montiroing and oncall in Part 5: “Reliable software systems” in-depth: but it’s useful – and oftentimes necessary! – to know about these practices below the staff engineer levels.
The Software Engineer's Guidebook is available in multiple languages:
You should now be able to ask your local book shops to order the book for you via Ingram Spark Print-on-demand - using the ISBN code 9789083381824. I'm also working on making the paperback more accessible in additional regions, including translated versions. Please share details here if you're unable to get the book in your country and I'll aim to remedy the situation.
I'd like to think so! The book can help you get ideas on how to help software engineers on your team grow. And if you are a hands-on engineering manager (which I hope you might be!) then you can apply the topics yourself! I wrote more about staying hands-on as an engineering manager or lead in The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter.
I've gotten this variation of a question from Data Engineers, ML Engineers, designers and SREs. See the more detailed table of contents and the "Look inside" sample to get a better idea of the contents of the book. I have written this book with software engineers as the target group, and the bulk of the book applies for them. Part 1 is more generally applicable career advice: but that's still smaller subset of the book.