A Life Engineered

🎉 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/aleVibe 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.”

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/aleDave 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.

🎉 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/alehttps://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.

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-engineeredGergely 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