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Guest Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/suphilip
https://molochinations.substack.com/ 
https://superphonic.fm/

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The "event horizon" for software engineering has arrived, and former Meta I9 engineer Philip Su says the traditional developer role isn't coming back. Discover why your most valuable skill may no longer be writing code.

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Prepare for your next interview the smart way with Hello Interview: https://www.hellointerview.com/?ref=alifeengineered

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Stefan Mai walked away from Meta and Amazon to build Hello Interview, and what he's learned about AI's impact on hiring will surprise you. 

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Guest Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/skeptomai

🚀🚀🚀 Work directly with Steve to get a high performance review and your next tech promotion in a year, guaranteed! 
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Christopher Brown, one of the founding engineers behind EC2 and former Amazon Senior Principal Engineer, pulls back the curtain on Amazon's transformation into a Day Two company. The path to tech success fundamentally changed overnight.

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Guest Links:
https://www.waterfall.net (Mention this podcast for $100 credit when you book)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophe-bisciglia-745aa810

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Christophe Bisciglia walked away from early Google equity that would be worth $72 million today to build a multi-billion dollar company. Now he runs a 120-foot waterfall hotel in Hawaii, programs with AI, and finally works on something he actually gives a sh*t about.

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🚀🚀🚀 Work directly with Steve to get a high performance review and your next tech promotion in a year, guaranteed! 
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Guest Links:

https://www.instagram.com/madeline.m.zhang/
https://www.youtube.com/@maddyzhang

Maddie Zhang walked away from Google with four job offers in hand during one of tech’s toughest hiring markets. If you’re thinking about leaving your comfortable job or wondering how to actually land offers in this brutal market, this is your playbook.

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Guest Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelnovati/
https://formation.dev/

Michael Novati's journey from Meta intern to E7 principal engineer in six years required the company to invent an entirely new career archetype: the "coding machine."

This conversation explores the tension between individual excellence and organizational scale, why the coding machine archetype hits a ceiling, and how AI is simultaneously amplifying and threatening this approach.

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Sign up at http://wealthfront.com/ale. This is a paid endorsement for Wealthfront. May not reflect others’ experiences. Similar outcomes not guaranteed. Wealthfront Brokerage is not a bank. Rate subject to change. Promo terms apply. If eligible for the boosted rate of 4.15% offered in connection with this promo, the boosted rate is also subject to change if base rate decreases during the 3 month promo period.

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Carlos Arguelles came to America at 15 with no English and no money, eventually becoming a Senior Principal Engineer who broke Amazon during Black Friday. He then turned that disaster into infrastructure the entire company uses today. From 12 years stuck at Microsoft to the real differences between Amazon and Google, Carlos reveals what actually separates engineers who plateau from those who break through. This is the career advice nobody gives you until it's too late.

Guest Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlos-arguelles-6352392
https://carloarg02.medium.com/

🚀🚀🚀 Work directly with Steve to get a high performance review and your next tech promotion in a year, guaranteed! Get the Black Friday offer here: http://go.alifeengineered.com/?utm_source=yt&utm_medium=lf&utm_campaign=s2p-nr&utm_content=carlos-arguelles-sponsored

We’re thrilled to be partnering with Linear.
Linear is the purpose-built tool for planning and building products - trusted by companies like OpenAI, Cursor, and Perplexity.

Learn more about Linear's integration with GitHub Copilot 👉🏼  https://linear.app/changelog/2025-10-28-github-copilot-agent

And get 6 months free of Linear Business (5 seats) 👉🏼 https://linear.app/ale

Philip Su climbed to Meta E9, then voluntarily demoted himself to E7 because he missed writing code. Now he's building his own podcast player while sounding the alarm on AI displacement. In this conversation, Philip doesn't sugarcoat it: he thinks most software developers won't be able to compete with AI within a decade, believes companies will choose "more with less" every time, and argues that your career speedrun is actually setting you up for a midlife crisis.

But he's not all pessimism. Philip shares why he still pays a developer despite AI being cheaper, explains why the top 1% of engineers will make more than ever, and reveals why he thinks consciousness and wave-particle duality should be dominating our conversations way more than they do.

Guest Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/suphilip
https://superphonic.fm/

🎉 Big Announcement: Linear is now the presenting sponsor of A Life Engineered! 

We're thrilled to partner with Linear for the entire next year. Linear is the purpose-built tool for planning and building products - trusted by companies like OpenAI, Cursor, and Perplexity. Exclusive offer for our listeners: Get 6 months free of Linear Business (3 seats) to celebrate our partnership. 

👉 Redeem at: https://linear.app/ale

Ethan Evans got fired twice for his big mouth, yet still became a Vice President at Amazon where he built Prime Video and Twitch. In this raw conversation, he reveals what really happens when you fail catastrophically in front of Jeff Bezos, why his CEO retaliated by seducing his wife, and the uncomfortable truth about the trade-offs executives make to reach the top. He's brutally honest about giving himself a "C" as a parent and explains why turtling up after a mistake is career suicide.

We dive into the counterintuitive wisdom that most people miss about career growth: why your nervous system is lying to you about risk, how to turn failure into trust, and why building your network might be more valuable than anything you're currently working on. Ethan shares his test for high-potential employees, the exact emails he sent Jeff Bezos during his biggest disaster, and why he told Elon Musk that having VPs code was "a stupid idea." If you want unfiltered truth about what it actually takes to lead at the highest levels of tech, this is it.

Guest Link: https://www.ethanevans.com/

🎉 Big Announcement: Linear is now the presenting sponsor of A Life Engineered! 

We're thrilled to partner with Linear for the entire next year. Linear is the purpose-built tool for planning and building products - trusted by companies like OpenAI, Cursor, and Perplexity. Exclusive offer for our listeners: 

Get 6 months free of Linear Business (3 seats) to celebrate our partnership. 
👉 Redeem at: https://linear.app/ale

Guest Links:
https://www.computerenhance.com/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/annarettberg/meow-the-infinite-book-three
https://x.com/cmuratori