I've had pretty much the opposite experience. I tried to get better at chess and I managed to push to a rating of 1800 on lichess rapid. After that I felt like my natural ability had come to its limit and the only way left to improve was by memorising a lot of positions. And, of course, memorising an endgame table doesn't help you solve any other problems.
There are plenty of books. There's Aimchess. Lichess has lots of free material. So does YouTube. Reddit too. The meme subbreddit is better to learn from than the actual chess one.
If you're talking about strategy (long term) and not just tactics (correct next moves), a simple beginner trick is to try to control the middle 4 squares, then castle the king so it's not vulnerable, then start attacking.
Past the early game it's mostly pattern recognition and geometry. Your moves try to threaten two pieces at a time. e.g. a bishop might threaten two pieces in a row. Or it may force a protecting piece away from a critical tile you need to win.
I'm not sure what this has to do with programming though.