A Life Engineered

Steve Huynh
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Deep conversations with people who've had exceptional careers to inspire you to have your own exceptional career.

Episodes

  1. Why Even Google Engineers Are Relearning Everything | Maddy Zhang

    5 DAYS AGO

    Why Even Google Engineers Are Relearning Everything | Maddy Zhang

    Get 6 months free of Linear Business (3 seats) to celebrate our partnership 👉🏻 Redeem at: https://linear.app/ale 🚀🚀🚀 Work directly with Steve to get a high performance review and your next tech promotion in a year, guaranteed! http://go.alifeengineered.com/?utm_source=yt&utm_medium=lf&utm_campaign=s2p-nr&utm_content=maddy_zhang-sponsored 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.

    49 min
  2. How Engineers Break Into The Top 1% | Michael Novati

    8 DEC

    How Engineers Break Into The Top 1% | Michael Novati

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

    1h 9m
  3. Why The Best Reinvent Themselves Every 2 Years | Carlos Arguelles

    25 NOV

    Why The Best Reinvent Themselves Every 2 Years | Carlos Arguelles

    Get 6 months free of Linear Business (3 seats) to celebrate our partnership 👉🏻 Redeem at: https://linear.app/ale 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. The Cash Account, which is not a deposit account, is offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC ("Wealthfront Brokerage"), Member FINRA/SIPC. Wealthfront Brokerage is not a bank. The Annual Percentage Yield ("APY") on cash deposits as of 11/7/25, is representative, requires no minimum, and may change at any time. The APY reflects the weighted average of deposit balances at participating Program Banks, which are not allocated equally. Wealthfront Brokerage sweeps cash balances to Program Banks, where they earn the variable APY. Investment management and advisory services are provided by Wealthfront Advisers LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Securities investments: not bank deposits, bank-guaranteed or FDIC-insured, and may lose value.Instant and same-day withdrawals use the Real-Time Payments (RTP) network or FedNow service. Transfers may be limited by your receiving institution, daily caps, or participating entities. New Cash Account deposits have a 2–4 day hold before transfer. Wealthfront does not charge fees for these services, but receiving institutions may impose an RTP or FedNow Fee. Processing times may vary. 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-6352392https://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

    49 min
  4. Why Even The Best Engineers Are Afraid Of What’s Coming | Philip Su

    10 NOV

    Why Even The Best Engineers Are Afraid Of What’s Coming | Philip Su

    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/suphiliphttps://superphonic.fm/

    56 min
  5. Why People Are INVISIBLE To Leaders And How To Fix It | Ethan Evans

    27 OCT

    Why People Are INVISIBLE To Leaders And How To Fix It | Ethan Evans

    🎉 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/

    1h 17m
  6. What Big Tech Still Gets WRONG about Great Programmers | Casey Muratori

    15 OCT

    What Big Tech Still Gets WRONG about Great Programmers | Casey Muratori

    🎉 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-threehttps://x.com/cmuratori

    57 min
  7. Vibe Coding Is The Only Future - Steve Yegge

    30 SEPT

    Vibe Coding Is The Only Future - Steve Yegge

    🎉 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 Vibe Coding Book: Vibe Coding: Building Production-Grade Software With GenAI, Chat, Agents, and Beyond - by Steve Yegge, Gene Kim, Dario Amodei (Foreword) I just finished an absolutely mind-bending 100+ minute conversation with Steve Yegge, and I need to tell you - this man just called 99% of programmers “dinosaurs using Stone Age tools.” Coming from the guy who accidentally leaked that legendary 3,700-word Google+ rant while drunk, joined Amazon as employee #250, and now claims he can write 12,000 lines of production code per day using AI... you might want to listen. He dropped some absolute bombs in this extended cut - like his prediction that within 5 years, traditional coding will be completely obsolete, and how he codes during meetings now because “vibe coding” has become so addictive he literally can’t stop. The conversation took some wild turns - from why Jeff Bezos personally begged him not to leave Amazon, to his theory that companies will soon face a brutal choice: how many engineers do you fire to pay for AI tools for the rest? What really stuck with me was his comparison to electric vehicles destroying combustion engines - traditional programmers are like angry car enthusiasts watching EVs blow them out of the water on performance. “You’re not writing code anymore,” he says. “You’re literally the team lead for a bunch of coders who can do amazing things or really stupid things in equal proportions.”

    51 min
  8. Why This Amazon Director Walked Away From Everything at 42 | Dave Anderson

    15 SEPT

    Why This Amazon Director Walked Away From Everything at 42 | Dave Anderson

    Want more from Dave? Join his newsletter: https://www.scarletink.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 launch offer for our listeners: Get 6 months free of Linear Business (3 seats) to celebrate our partnership.  👉 Redeem at: https://linear.app/ale Dave Anderson went from getting a D in high school theater (which derailed his medical career dreams) to becoming a director at Amazon, where he helped change the company's transfer policy that affects hundreds of thousands of employees. In this candid conversation, Dave reveals how a recruiter told him his resume was "terrible," why he believes managers don't need to be great coders, and how he saved 85% of his income to retire in his 40s. He shares unfiltered insights about Amazon's culture, including why he thinks the company started declining before Jeff Bezos even left, and offers a surprising take on why Facebook's chaotic promotion process might actually be better than Amazon's rigorous documentation requirements. The conversation takes unexpected turns as Dave explains why he tests his team by proposing "absurd" ideas, admits he was never actually a senior engineer despite writing guides about it, and reveals what number would bring him back to corporate life (spoiler: it's in the millions). He challenges conventional wisdom about AI replacing engineers, arguing that current layoffs are finance-driven rather than efficiency-driven, while also warning that we're essentially using capitalism to destroy capitalism itself. Whether discussing his move from the Midwest where he could "spend weeks doing almost nothing" to Amazon's pressure-cooker environment, or predicting a future where AI makes most human jobs obsolete, Dave brings a refreshingly honest perspective to career growth, money, and what's really happening in big tech.

    49 min
  9. How NeetCode Turned Two Months of Hell at Amazon Into a Million-Dollar Business

    1 SEPT

    How NeetCode Turned Two Months of Hell at Amazon Into a Million-Dollar Business

    🎉 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 launch offer for our listeners: Get 6 months free of Linear Business (3 seats) to celebrate our partnership. 👉 Redeem at: https://linear.app/ale https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@NeetCode⁩ https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@NeetCodeIO⁩ https://neetcode.io/   Episode Description: Navdeep Singh (Neetcode) opens up about his devastating two-month stint at Amazon that led to unemployment and mental health struggles, before building a YouTube empire with over 1 million subscribers. We discuss the realities of Big Tech, why coding interviews persist, and whether AI will replace programmers.

    48 min
  10. High School Dropout to Google Principal: Sundas Khalid Makes More from Content Than Her Tech Salary

    29 AUG

    High School Dropout to Google Principal: Sundas Khalid Makes More from Content Than Her Tech Salary

    A Life Engineered

    46 min
  11. Gergely Orosz on Tech's Entry-Level Crisis and What Comes Next

    1 AUG

    Gergely Orosz on Tech's Entry-Level Crisis and What Comes Next

    Linear is a purpose-built tool for planning and building products. Engineers at OpenAI, Brex, and CashApp love it because it's fast, friction-free, and keeps you focused on shipping. Get $250 off any plan at http://linear.app/partners/a-life-engineered Gergely Orosz walked away from engineering management at Uber to become tech's most influential newsletter writer. His Pragmatic Engineer newsletter reaches over 1 million readers—more than the population of San Francisco—making him the #1 tech writer on Substack. In this conversation, we dive deep into why junior developers can't get hired, what actually drives career growth, and his concept of "energy" as the hidden force that makes or breaks engineering teams. Key Topics Discussed: The IC vs Manager Decision (5:45) Gergely's journey: Principal → Senior Engineer at Uber (but 2x the comp)Why you should try management for 1-2 years (even if you hate it)The "insurance policy" of management experienceHow "failed managers" make the best staff engineersWhat Makes a Technical Manager (17:53) The Booking.com burnout storyWhy managers who can't code struggleAmazon's "dive deep" principle in practiceLearning distributed systems as a manager at UberThe Entry-Level Crisis (23:01) Why junior hiring has been down for 5 straight yearsThe "30% AI efficiency" trap destroying traditional entry pathsWhy GitHub is bucking the trend and hiring MORE juniorsPractical advice: Build apps that earn $1 from strangersCareer Growth Strategies (33:13) Step 1: Crush your current job (no shortcuts)Why your side projects might not help your promotionThe Venn diagram of personal growth vs company valueUnderstanding what actually drives business impactThe Energy Theory (41:39) Why OpenAI ships so fast (hint: it's not their process)Energy vs Process: What actually drives resultsThe Factorio principle of enjoying "boring" workHow high-energy teams blast through mistakesConnect with Gergely: Newsletter: https://pragmaticengineer.comBook: The Software Engineer's Guidebook - https://geni.us/uTUAyxPodcast: The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/@pragmaticengineer/podcasts

    44 min
  • 11 Episodes

About

Deep conversations with people who've had exceptional careers to inspire you to have your own exceptional career.

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  • Creator
    Steve Huynh
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    11
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 A Life Engineered LLC
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    A Life Engineered

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