Books and Authorship (2024 to Present)

Alex co-authored Apache Iceberg: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly Media, 2024), which came out in Japanese in 2025, and Apache Polaris: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly Media, 2025). Dremio gives away free digital editions of both.

He is the sole author of Architecting an Apache Iceberg Lakehouse (Manning, 2026). With Benedikt Stemmildt he co-wrote Building the Software Factory (Packt), on turning AI coding agents into a dependable, team-wide practice.

Independent books

Alongside the publisher titles he publishes independently on data engineering, AI, and developer relations (Alex Merced's Field Guide to Developer Relations), career sovereignty (Reputation as Code), economics, philosophy, and fiction, including the ten-book space opera The Worlds Between Home. He also designed D6 Storyteller, a fiction-first tabletop roleplaying engine with ten genre companion books.

The books page highlights the publisher titles. Every book is on books.alexmerced.com.