OpenAI & Meta Distinguished Engineer (IC9) On Working With Zuck, Carmack & Career Growth | Philip Su
Philip Su grew to Distinguished Engineer (IC9) at Meta and OpenAI. He has a bunch of interesting stories about working with people like Zuck and John Carmack as well as a ton of advice for software engineers. I was really looking forward to chatting with him and enjoyed this conversation a lot. I hope you find it helpful!In this conversation, we discussed:• What Distinguished Eng (IC9) expectations look like• How he got promoted to IC9• Working with impressive engineers like John Carmack• What made Zuck and Boz special as coworkers• Learnings from switching between IC and EM 6x• Why he joined OpenAI• Advice for his younger selfTimestamps:(00:00) Intro(01:02) Growing to Senior Staff (IC7) at Microsoft(06:38) Management vs IC transitions(17:32) Demotion from IC9 to IC7 at Meta(20:28) IC7, IC8, and IC9 expectations(28:58) IC9 promo story(31:30) Building a strong eng team culture(36:16) Working with Zuck + Meta CTO(38:57) Working with John Carmack and other impressive ICs(41:44) Buying $23000 of coffee in a day(45:35) Why leave Facebook(49:25) Joining OpenAI(55:38) Writing well as a software engineer(1:03:00) Does software eng performance decline as you age?(1:07:00) Building credibility as a young manager(1:10:25) Should you be a generalist or a specialist?(1:12:43) Advice for his younger selfWhere to find Philip:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suphilip/• Peak Salvation podcast he referenced: https://peaksalvation.com/Where to find Ryan:• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/• X: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ryanlpeterman• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman To hear more, visit www.developing.dev