A top engineer for Big Tech asked for a demotion at the peak of his career.
Philip Su, who reached the prestigious “distinguished engineer” or IC9 level at Meta and OpenAI, said on “The Peterman Pod” podcast that promotions lost some of their shine as his career progressed.
“The thrill of the promotion itself was no longer the same as when I was younger,” Su told show host Ryan Peterman. “When I was younger, because I sought after those grades, those measurable metrics, I very much felt great every time I got promoted.”
By level seven, however, advancement no longer felt like an unqualified win.
“It wasn’t all roses to me anymore, the idea of getting promoted, because I realized that each promotion also came with much higher expectations,” Su said. “Expectations that I was no longer positive that I was going to deliver well.”
Su, now the CEO and founder of Superphonic, an AI-powered iOS and iPadOS podcast player, ultimately sought a demotion at Meta from IC9 to IC7. He said that operating at a higher level left him exhausted and like the “Eye of Sauron” was constantly scrutinizing his performance.
“The higher level you are, the more that you feel that intensity all the time,” Su said, adding that companies are entitled to question whether highly paid employees are delivering enough value.
At Meta, an IC9, also known as level E9, is one grade above a Principal Engineer and one promotion away from being a Meta Fellow. According to Levels.fyi, a compensation estimate platform, an IC9 engineer at Meta can earn roughly $4.3 million annually, including about $404,500 in base salary, $3.8 million in stock grants, and a bonus of at least $110,000. By comparison, Levels.fyi estimates that an IC7 Meta engineer could make around $1.63 million a year in total.
Stepping down was not painless. Su said it was difficult watching people who had once been below him rise past him. Still, he said had come to recognize that a lower-level role could offer work he enjoyed without requiring him to perform indefinitely at the edge of his abilities.
Su said people chasing a major career goal should ask themselves a simple question: What will they do once they achieve it?
“Now pretend you’ve just reached it. What do you do next?” Su said. “If you have a good answer for that, then you’re fine.”
Su’s reversal reflects a broader retreat from the traditional corporate ladder. A late 2024 Randstad survey found that 42% of US workers would decline a promotion if offered. An Apple engineer also previously told Business Insider that she burned out and needed a career break after being promoted to a manager role.
For Su, he said the lesson was that every career has an upper limit, and reaching it need not be the goal.
“You know what?” Su said. “Like maybe this ultimately is my final level.”
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