A Life Engineered

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Demetri Spanos has spent decades at the frontier of AI and machine learning, and he's watched it take over the entire industry.

In this conversation with Steve Huynh, he breaks down what junior engineers should actually be focused on in a world where the advice keeps changing and and why thinking you've found a stable AI workflow is the biggest mistake you can make right now.
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📘 Everything I know about behavioral interviews from conducting nearly 1,000 of them as a Bar Raiser, now in one book: https://geni.us/BehavioralInterview-yt

🚀 Work directly with Steve to get a high performance review and your next tech promotion in a year, guaranteed! ➡️ https://go.alifeengineered.com/1?video=DF5M5CJi9sM

💥 Continue the conversation on my Discord server with like-minded viewers. The advice section is *chef's kiss* - https://discord.com/invite/HFVMbQgRJJ

📈Transform your tech career with my free weekly newsletter - https://alifeengineered.substack.com/

Guest Links:
https://demetrispanos.com/

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

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Most engineers think their pay reflects their performance. Colin Lernell watched the worst performer on his team earn $120K more than the best, and that one observation changed everything.

Now one of the world's foremost experts in tech salary negotiation, he sits down with Steve Huynh to break down the secret menu that most candidates don't even know exists, why you don't need a competing offer to negotiate, and how to get one of those $2M to $7M AI compensation packages even if you're not an AI expert.

Please Note: The following conversation on AI is largely in regards to AI adjacent WE/PM roles, not foundational AL research roles that often require PhDs, research experience, or other AI related experience.
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📘 Everything I know about behavioral interviews from conducting nearly 1,000 of them as a Bar Raiser, now in one book: https://geni.us/BehavioralInterview-yt

🚀 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=colin_lernell-sponsored

For the extended conversation, become a member to this channel or join my Substack:

💥 Continue the conversation on my Discord server with like-minded viewers. The advice section is *chef's kiss* - https://discord.com/invite/HFVMbQgRJJ

📈Transform your tech career with my free weekly newsletter - https://alifeengineered.substack.com/

Guest Links:
https://www.toptechnewsletter.com/about
https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinlernell

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

📘 AI can write your code. It can't tell your story. Behavioral interviews are the new differentiator, and I wrote the book on them: https://geni.us/BehavioralInterview-yt

🚀 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=Ethan_Evans_2-sponsored

For the extended conversation, become a member to this channel or join my Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/alifeengineered/p/ex-amazon-vp-on-what-actually-gets?r=2tt9s7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

💥 Continue the conversation on my Discord server with like-minded viewers. The advice section is *chef's kiss* - https://discord.com/invite/HFVMbQgRJJ

📈Transform your tech career with my free weekly newsletter - https://alifeengineered.substack.com/

Ethan Evans spent his career climbing to VP at Amazon, helping build Prime Video and Twitch and leading teams of over 800 people. He retired with enough money to stop caring what he's "supposed" to say, which is why he's blunt about the stuff most executives dodge: everyone lies at work sometimes, and if you refuse to play politics, you lose by default.

Steve gets Ethan to break down how to spot manipulation before it costs you, how to tell if your manager (or their whole chain) is toxic, and how to stop taking orders and start managing up so your boss can't afford to lose you. They close on the exact math and wording for asking for a raise — and why most people never even ask.

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

📘 AI can write your code. It can't tell your story. Behavioral interviews are the new differentiator, and I wrote the book on them: https://geni.us/BehavioralInterview-yt

If you want to be in the hot-seat for the next video like this, apply here: https://forms.gle/121P4FhVhxkBaPiq5

🚀 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=muhan-sponsored

For the extended conversation, become a member to this channel or join my Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/alifeengineered/p/i-coached-a-security-engineer-through?r=2tt9s7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

💥 Continue the conversation on my Discord server with like-minded viewers. The advice section is *chef's kiss* - https://discord.com/invite/HFVMbQgRJJ

📈Transform your tech career with my free weekly newsletter - https://alifeengineered.substack.com/

Muhan is an application security engineer who aced the technical round at Meta but walked out of the behavioral interview not knowing what went wrong. He had stories. He just didn't know which ones to tell or how to tell them. Steve Huynh coaches him live on how to lead with outcomes instead of methods, find stories with stakes that match the level he's targeting, and and bring the same energy to the interview that he already brings to the work itself.

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

📘 My book Technical Behavioral Interview hit #1 on Amazon. If you're interviewing soon, this is the playbook: https://geni.us/BehavioralInterview-yt

If you want to be in the hot-seat for the next video like this, apply here: https://forms.gle/121P4FhVhxkBaPiq5

🚀 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=aaron-sponsored

For the extended conversation, become a member to this channel or join my Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/alifeengineered/p/fixing-an-aws-engineers-behavioral?r=2tt9s7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

💥 Continue the conversation on my Discord server with like-minded viewers. The advice section is *chef's kiss* - https://discord.com/invite/HFVMbQgRJJ

📈Transform your tech career with my free weekly newsletter - https://alifeengineered.substack.com/

Aaron has six years at Amazon — Alexa, AWS Bedrock, agent evaluation — and a resume that should be getting him senior offers. It’s not. If you've ever walked out of an interview knowing you had the experience but unsure if you showed it, this one's for you. Steve Huynh coaches him live through exactly what's holding him back.

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

📘 I wrote the book on technical behavioral interviews, nearly 1,000 interviews worth of lessons in one guide. Grab it here: https://geni.us/BehavioralInterview-yt

If you want to be in the hot-seat for the next video like this, apply here: https://forms.gle/121P4FhVhxkBaPiq5

🚀 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=john-sponsored

For the extended conversation, become a member to this channel or join my Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/alifeengineered/p/i-coached-a-ex-microsoft-manager?r=2tt9s7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

💥 Continue the conversation on my Discord server with like-minded viewers. The advice section is *chef's kiss* - https://discord.com/invite/HFVMbQgRJJ

📈Transform your tech career with my free weekly newsletter - https://alifeengineered.substack.com/

After 19 years at Microsoft, John expected his track record to speak for itself. It didn't. A year into his search for an engineering manager role at Netflix, the interviews keep ending the same way. Steve Huynh has seen this before — the experience is all there, but the stories aren't showing it. He coaches John live on exactly what's getting in the way.

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

📘 Everything I know about behavioral interviews from conducting nearly 1,000 of them as a Bar Raiser, now in one book: https://geni.us/BehavioralInterview-yt

If you want to be in the hot-seat for the next video like this, apply here: https://forms.gle/121P4FhVhxkBaPiq5

🚀 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=kenan-sponsored

For the extended conversation, become a member to this channel or join my Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/alifeengineered/p/i-coached-a-front-end-engineer-to?r=2tt9s7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

💥 Continue the conversation on my Discord server with like-minded viewers. The advice section is *chef's kiss* - https://discord.com/invite/HFVMbQgRJJ

📈Transform your tech career with my free weekly newsletter - https://alifeengineered.substack.com/

Kenan is a senior frontend engineer with six years of experience trying to land his next senior role, and he has the stories to get there. A broken questionnaire costing real money, a production bug impossible to reproduce locally, and an end-to-end testing rollout the team fought back on.

What he's missing has nothing to do with experience — and everything to do with how he tells it. Three changes. One session. Watch it happen in real time. Steve Huynh coaches him live through every story.

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

📘 I wrote the book on technical behavioral interviews, nearly 1,000 interviews worth of lessons in one guide. Grab it here: https://geni.us/BehavioralInterview-yt

If you want to be in the hot-seat for the next video like this, apply here: https://forms.gle/121P4FhVhxkBaPiq5

🚀 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=ahmed-sponsored

For the extended conversation, become a member to this channel or join my Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/alifeengineered/p/i-coached-an-aws-engineer-senior?r=2tt9s7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

💥 Continue the conversation on my Discord server with like-minded viewers. The advice section is *chef's kiss* - https://discord.com/invite/HFVMbQgRJJ

📈Transform your tech career with my free weekly newsletter - https://alifeengineered.substack.com/

Ahmed is an AWS senior engineer with 12 years in the industry trying to break into staff — and he has the stories to get there. A four week migration with 20 partner teams, a disagreement with a principal engineer, two years leading a project end to end.

What he's missing is knowing which ones to tell and how to tell them at the right level. Steve Huynh coaches him live on the three biggest things holding him back.

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

📘 AI can write your code. It can't tell your story. Behavioral interviews are the new differentiator, and I wrote the book on them: https://geni.us/BehavioralInterview-yt

If you want to be in the hot-seat for the next video like this, apply here: https://forms.gle/121P4FhVhxkBaPiq5

🚀 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=dhruv-sponsored

💥 Continue the conversation on my Discord server with like-minded viewers. The advice section is *chef's kiss* - https://discord.com/invite/HFVMbQgRJJ

📈Transform your tech career with my free weekly newsletter - https://alifeengineered.substack.com/

Dhruv is an L5 engineer at Amazon with five and a half years of experience — and he's doing what 90% of smart engineers do in interviews: telling stories that sound great to him but get him down-leveled.

Steve Huynh, a former Amazon principal engineer who conducted nearly a thousand interviews as a bar raiser, coaches Dhruv live on the three things holding him back: decoding what the interviewer is actually asking, picking stories that land at L6, and packaging them so the interviewer can capture his signal before the debrief.

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

📘 My book Technical Behavioral Interview hit #1 on Amazon. If you're interviewing soon, this is the playbook: https://geni.us/BehavioralInterview-yt

Guest Links:
https://linktr.ee/kunchenguid
https://www.youtube.com/@kunchenguid
https://kunchenguid.substack.com
https://x.com/kunchenguid

🚀🚀🚀 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=kun-chen-sponsored

Kun Chen reached E7 at Meta and Partner level at Microsoft faster than almost anyone his peers knew — and then walked away from management to go back to writing code. Now a solo builder, he breaks down the monthly growth test that told him when to quit, why learning to lose control as a manager made him a better AI orchestrator, and why true vibe coders will always hit a ceiling without real engineering experience underneath them.

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

🚀🚀🚀 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=casey-muratori2-sponsored

Casey Muratori has spent 20 years writing code by hand and still couldn't care less about AI — not because he thinks it won't work, but because programming is the point, not the output.

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

Guest Links:
https://www.instagram.com/anjali.gama/?hl=en
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anjali-viramgama

🚀🚀🚀 Work directly with Steve to get a high performance review and your next tech promotion in a year, guaranteed!
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Anjali Viramgama grew her online following to half a million people by turning her own learning into content, while working full time in Big Tech. Since then, she has coached hundreds of students into their first tech roles.

She breaks down why “follow your passion” is bad career advice, how she applied to the same role ten different ways, and why depth of specialization — not just the ability to prompt — is what will matter most in an AI-driven industry.

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

Guest Links:
https://a16z.com/author/anish-acharya/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anishacharya

🚀🚀🚀 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=anish-acharya-sponsored

From building at Amazon in the early 2000s to selling a company to Google, Anish Acharya has spent his career chasing the edge of where the most ambitious people are working. He breaks down why enterprise software is oversold, how AI coding agents are unlocking a generation of builders, and what it takes to show up with a founder mindset no matter where you sit.

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

Guest Links:
https://es.linkedin.com/in/tuomasartman
https://linear.app/about

🚀🚀🚀 Work directly with Steve to get a high performance review and your next tech promotion in a year, guaranteed!
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What separates a high-level CTO from a Senior Engineer? And what is the one mistake that can stall your trajectory for nearly a decade? Co-founder and CTO of Linear Tuomas Artman has navigated the highest levels of technical leadership and knows exactly what it takes to scale both systems and careers.

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

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

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

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

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

🚀🚀🚀 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=stefan_mai-sponsored

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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!
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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.

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.