In the Passionate Programmer,  Chad Fowler describes ways you can have “a remarkable career in software engineering.”

He organizes the advice using 5 axes:

• Choose your market
  • You lead or you bleed. You need to find your competitive advantage and cultivate it.
• Invest in your product
  • Learn from the best and mentor the rest.
• Execute your daily strategy
  • Focus on what you can realize in a day and deliver something every day
• Market yourself
  • Translate your knowledge in c-speak and speak up in your field of expertise
• Maintain your edge
  • Skills age very fast so make sure you learn and improve your knowledge every day