Richard Hamming wrote a book, "The Art of Doing Science and Engineering", which - despite its name - is more or less a memoir of his own scientific career. It's a fun read if you're interested in that culture.
From the preface, "After many years of pressure and encouragement from friends, I decided to write up the graduate course in engineering I teach at the U.S.Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. ...In this series of lectures I try to communicate to students what cannot be said in words—the essence of style in science and engineering. ...I have found that the personal story is far, far more effective than the impersonal one; hence there is necessarily an aura of “bragging” in the book that is unavoidable."
You can watch him giving that 31-lecture course in 1995 here
Enjoy! It's wonderful. (The last lecture is the famous "You and Your Research" that he gave many times.)
I've really enjoyed his books too, from Numerical Methods for Scientists and Engineers to Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and Statistics. They're all drenched with experience.
