Hearted Youtube comments on A Life Engineered (@ALifeEngineered) channel.

  1. The main things holding me back are anxiety/depression but i will definitely come back to this video once i'm in a better state. Seems like really good advice.
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  2. Hey Steve, it's pretty insane that we get to enjoy Q&As from a principal engineer. Thanks for doing this!
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  3. It hit me so hard that your company won't attend your funeral! Also, the only person who will remember you working on the weekends are your kids! I wish you all the best! Really excited to see your upcoming journey!
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  4. Great work, Steve! As always, you’re an inspiration! I noticed MLEs aren’t specifically represented, so if I may add a bit of wisdom that applies to SWEs but is essential for ML Engineers: Make time to learn—no one will hand it to you. Learning isn’t a one-time task; it’s an ongoing process that requires setting aside time regularly to stay on top of all the advancements. Bonus tip: whenever you learn something new, schedule a “deep dive” session with your colleagues to explain it to them. Not only will you understand the subject more deeply, but you’ll also position yourself as a leader in the space.
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  5. Actually, This is so encouraging, executing an equivalent rm-rf command and still able reaching principal level.
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  6. Hey Steve, around 5 months ago I managed to break out from a mid-level dev job cycle to a senior role because of one of your other videos. Thank you for your guidance.
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  7. This video felt supremely authentic, please don’t lose this in 2025 ❤️. You’re actually a huge inspiration on why I personally continue to create content every week. Thank you for everything you do. I hope you and the family have a very merry Christmas 🎄 ❤
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  8. This is probably the best advice I've seen of getting a job. Especially the connections part, that is underrated. The story was a great addition to how knowing others and helping them can pay back. Thank you for the effort and for helping others.
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  9. "be the world's worst criminal" that had my dying great vid Steve 😂
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  10. I was listening to this audio only and for a minute there I thought Steve has a strange way of shortening the word candidate, “candy”
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  11. That interaction with services team is 💯. Make no assumptions, treat everyone like AI 😂
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  12. I quit after 16 years. Also 41yo, 2 kids, young. You won't believe how much this video resonates with me. I'm in tears, brother. It's comforting to know someone out there feels exactly how I feel.
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  13. I like hearing your life updates. Humble, carefully crafted, honest. And as a fellow Amazonian, dad, and YouTuber, it’s nice and inspiring to hear someone else’s story who’s been through more.
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  14. Love your videos - I’d like to see one addressing when is the right time to switch teams, or managers. It’s risky switching teams and has a big effect on your career. Anyways, keep up the good work!
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  15. such an awesome video with really great advice Steve! i loved the comparison to poker and the reminder that interviewing is a numbers game. interview enough times and you're bound to succeed :)
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  16. Congrats Steve!! Happy for you and your fam!!
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  17. Two most important things I learnt: 1. Get rid of scarcity mindset and have courage to reject the offer. Companies don't care about you so why care about your "dream company"? 2. Know what your manager and his manager wants from you and do it nicely and communicate with him. Repeat it continuously
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  18. My experience so far if you want to land a job as an engineer: build something that you care about. Dont build the next todo app, come up with your own idea. Ask yourself what piece of software would make your life - even if it is just a little bit - easier and build that stuff. Congrats! You just delivered value. Companys will always look out for people who deliver value.
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  19. AI won’t replace you, but someone who knows how to use AI better might
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  20. The learning from the mistakes part is important. Once we had a principal level engineer with a prod breakage rate that was measurably 10x higher than anyone else in the company. The company took the blameless culture too far & each time the answer was what can we do to prevent this from happening rather than addressing the elephant in the room. We ended up spending significant resources babyproofing everything for one engineer rather than surgically operating on the root cause. "Lightsaber night is cancelled. Thanks Todd!": If you aren't willing to act on gross recklessness, then the organization will build layer on top of layer of bureaucracy that punishes everyone. We extended procedural due diligence by two weeks or more to release changes for the entire organization to blamelessly prevent one engineer from breaking prod nonstop.
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  21. Greet video! Completely on the same page as you Steve. Focusing on one thing at a time rather than scattering focus on multiple things gets your best attention. I figured out some years ago that you need to know what works best for you in terms of devoting time. for me, a 4 hours at a time is best for longer projects and a minimum of 2 hours for shorter ones.
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  22. Owning problems is such a great point. Some of the best advice I've gotten was from an engineering vp that recommended bringing 3 potential solutions and 1 recommendation when asking for your boss to help you solve a problem.
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  23. This is super important content! I had to learn all this the hard way
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  24. I feel like recruiters don’t want to recruit unemployed engineers, they cold call engineers with a job.
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  25. My biggest mistake in my career is never letting my manager know I wanted a promotion. Don't wait years to "get ready" just ask your manager what you need to do early to get the next position.
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  26. Thank you for the content so far, your previous time management video has made the single biggest impact on my career of any resource I’ve ever come across. Recognising emotional context switching was the key for me, and it’s so simple! Your videos are a gold mine amongst all the clickbait bullshit dev channels that pollute YouTube 😂
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  27. There is a catch 22 at play here. People not burning out at their job are the most qualified to teach others for example through YT. But they are less likely to do so because they do not need to cultivate an exit plan. People burning out at work are more likely to want to grow an audience on YT so they can escape, but are they the ones you want to listen to? This has happened with teachers also. One was setting the bar so high I was thinking how do you keep this up? Of course he quit in order to "help other teachers succeed". His audience dropped of soon after...
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  28. It helps, but i think this video is not one of those. Good stories with each point was told.
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  29. This couldn't have come at a better time for me, on-sites next week
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  30. Thanks a ton for the answer! You really are right about time being an important factor lol. I spent a while trying to understand the codebase since the time I wrote that question but with your feedback I'll try to also take the design decisions into account as well. Thanks again!
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  31. that passive aggressive interaction with s3... definitely came from experience
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  32. Just once, I want to face a critical issue in a project, turn to my manager, and reference the stupid question he asked during the interview, or point to the Leetcode questions they make you answer, and say, "How did knowing the answer to that question help us in the real world?"
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  33. Your day to day life sounds like my academic life style. Saying yes to almost everything, started many, and completed none… both have lots of freedom and can easily get lost. Thank you for the great video.
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  34. love the videos. Video Request - How to plan 30-60-90 days in your new job at a new company and succeed.
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  35. Exciting to see more of these videos!!! Great video idea. Takes one to know one, to relate to this
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  36. Thank you for answering my question! I wish I was still under 30--only after burning out in grad school (physics PhD program) and spending time lost in the weeds did I successfully pivot to landing a software gig in my late 20's to start my career. I am in the US, but not a tech hub and not really looking to relocate. Food for thought on potential to 3x my income, but also feel more behind on personal life goals than career ones--especially since I feel my job has ample amounts of making the world a better place, as opposed to most corporate gigs.
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  37. A big part of the gap you noticed in our industry is just due to the math of growth: if it takes 5-10 years to mint a true senior engineer and 10-20 years to mint a true principal engineer and the number of SWEs grows 50% each year (numbers completely made up but close enough for this level of analysis) then lack of technical leadership/mentoring is going to continue to be an issue. Thanks for trying to make it better. Your take toward the end there really resonated with me: I always try to be the kind of mentor to people I wish I'd had when I was coming up.
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  38. Great video. I was recently promoted to senior eng at my company and feel imposter syndrome. Great way to frame looking at this very common aspect of SWE. This is a good reminder that attitude, and the willingness to absorb knowledge from the people around you is one of the most important skills that I should continue practicing.
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  39. I love the way you speak, it makes me come back to your channel a few times a week. Clear and easy to digest. You deserve this next chapter in your life. Excited for this next adventure of yours!
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  40. LOL all of those fear thoughts in the first 25 seconds are 100% accurate.
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  41. Of course the question about how I speak so well is chopped up to bits in the edit. Sigh. Also, I'm an idiot, ""people that look like they're 40 that are actually 25, and a bunch of people that are 25, look like they're actually 40" 🤦If you have questions please leave them in the comments section below and I'll answer them in the next episode! Continue the conversation on my Discord server - https://discord.gg/HFVMbQgRJJ
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  42. Congrats. You have climbed one mountain, and have found another one. I love to see people succeed. Even though I'm not an Engineer, I found your content to be pretty useful as a product manager in tech. Not only was it personally helpful, but it also let me know what my engineering teams needed from me to be successful. I think you have a lot more value to add other than just engineers. You've got so much experience, and you're ready to soar. Don't limit yourself to just one group of people for too long.
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  43. Being able to tell your story is so important. I’m working on my technical report at work and my mentor is emphasizing the fact that it needs to be written in a way that people care. If the “why” isn’t clear, then it’s hard for anyone to care
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  44. Short answer yes, long answer, yes
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  45. Steve is the techlead we need, but not the one we deserve.
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  46. I'm not even in the market for software engineering, but I found this video incredibly clear and useful. Thanks for putting out this gold mine for us Steve!!
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  47. Thank you.
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  48. I'm so glad I found your gold. I just binge-washed all of it! Now I'm content.
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  49. When I interview I also try to find out if I want to work with them. They are applying to me as much as I am applying there.
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  50. I'm a QAE over at Big A who started 6 months ago, I hope I get to have a journey similar to yours - so far I love the people I work with and the culture and hope years from now to still be as content in my job as you seem to be - cheers!
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