Zuckerberg Taught Him How to Beat 99% of Software Engineers

In this episode, I sit down with Philip Su, a former Distinguished Engineer at Meta - one of the rarest engineering titles in the industry. Philip worked directly with Mark Zuckerberg, helped ship foundational products like Web Messenger, and later joined OpenAI in its earliest days. Try out Temporal → https://bit.ly/4sHNJ4L Philip’s Substack: https://molochinations.substack.com Superphonic, the iOS podcast player that Philip is writing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/superphonic/id6444668430 ___ 🚀 JOIN MY TECH COMMUNITY: SWE LAUNCHPAD Inside, you'll learn How to break Into tech with practical resources, job prep guidance, and real industry insights you won’t find in school. → https://swelaunchpad.com ✉️ TECH NEWSLETTER Discover the latest tech trends shaping the industry, unlock career tips, and access exclusive resources to stay competitive in tech. → https://sajjaad.substack.com/ 🗣️ INVITE ME TO SPEAK AT YOUR EVENT → https://forms.gle/p38f7Jqt7FjYWtYU7 🧑‍💻 LEARN TO CODE Learn to code with bite-sized projects and an AI-bot to help answer your queries. I recommend you start with their python module, then check out java and javascript. → https://coddy.tech/ (It's FREE, but you can use the code SAJYT for 20% off of premium features!) ⬇️ MY OTHER SOCIALS: 📸 Instagram: / https://www.instagram.com/sajjaad.khader/ 📱 TikTok: / https://www.tiktok.com/@sajjaadkhader 🌍 My website: https://sajjaad-s-site.thinkific.com/... ___ TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - Working with Zuckerberg & pushing first-principles thinking 0:44 – Who is Philip Su and how he became a Distinguished SWE Engineer 2:14 - How he reached one of the highest engineering levels at Meta 2:54 - When did Philip join Facebook? 3:24 - What do Distinguished SWE Engineers actually do? 4:47 - Why most engineers don’t think like owners 5:53 - How to stand out as a junior engineer? 9:00 - Compensation at the top: salary vs stock reality 11:01 - What Mark Zuckerberg was actually like to work with 12:51 - Le