OpenAI & Meta Distinguished Eng (IC9): The Psychology Behind Tech Career Peaks | Philip Su

Philip Su grew quickly to a Distinguished Engineer at Facebook and OpenAI. We talked about the psychology behind peaking in a tech career and the pressure at the highest levels. • My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/ • The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/... 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3UfH... • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/openai-a... 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲'𝘀 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸: • WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/ • Jira by Atlassian: Get more work done with your favorite agents and models all in one place, check them out at https://jira.dev/ 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀: 00:00 Intro 00:37 Growth past IC9 05:39 Motivation changes over his career 11:36 Asking to not be promoted 17:33 What made it hard to sustain IC9 performance 22:22 What motivated him outside of promos 26:21 Is career advice useless 29:34 Motivation after you've hit FIRE 36:08 Meaning and fulfillment 38:17 Top book recommendation 40:14 What he would change 43:24 Outro 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗽: • Substack newsletter: https://molochinations.substack.com/ • LinkedIn:   / suphilip   • X/Twitter: https://x.com/philipsu 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻: • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn:   / ryanlpeterman   • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram:   / ryanlpeterman   • TikTok:   / ryanlpeterman   𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲: • Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals: https://us.macmillan.com/books/978037...