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Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

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Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#101

Post by digsy »

soulnothing wrote: post #92

I've been "laid off" pretty much every six months for the past several years. Over and over my team has been out sourced for a cheaper alternative. Or the project was not properly scoped and would be above budget. This happened last week. Me and my team delivered a high frequency trading platform. Ahead of schedule, and better performance than requested. But still, we were too costly so we were all let go. Then it wa…

>Me and my team delivered a high frequency trading platform. Ahead of schedule, and better performance than requested.

Sounds like you have the startings of your own business there.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#102

Post by soulnothing »

digsy wrote: post #101
soulnothing wrote: post #92

I've been "laid off" pretty much every six months for the past several years. Over and over my team has been out sourced for a cheaper alternative. Or the project was not properly scoped and would be above budget. This happened last week. Me and my team delivered a high frequency trading platform. Ahead of schedule, and better performance than requested. But still, we were too costly so we were all let go. Then it wa…

>Me and my team delivered a high frequency trading platform. Ahead of schedule, and better performance than requested. Sounds like you have the startings of your own business there.

Intellectual assignment clause. It's limited a lot of ideas I've had. Combining that with constantly having to look for a way to provide a roof. It limits the ability to start a new business.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#103

Post by BurningFrog »

I mostly work at small startups, so I get laid off every few years.

First time was a huge traumatic shock, but the 4-5 times after that, I was prepared and mostly saw it as unplanned vacation.

My trick to being cool about it is to always have 1+ years of saving in the bank.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#104

Post by RickJWagner »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #46

I was laid off around 7 years ago. It was a massive hit to my self esteem and confidence and I actually considered leaving tech and going back to wood working (I used to build furniture). I managed to bounce back somewhat accidentally. A guy needed help with a Wordpress store he used to sell his woodworking products, so I did some stuff for him. He was so happy with what I did, he ended up telling other people. They…

Great story. Good luck going forward.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#105

Post by dboreham »

soulnothing wrote: post #102
digsy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Me and my team delivered a high frequency trading platform. Ahead of schedule, and better performance than requested. Sounds like you have the startings of your own business there.

Intellectual assignment clause. It's limited a lot of ideas I've had. Combining that with constantly having to look for a way to provide a roof. It limits the ability to start a new business.

>Intellectual assignment clause. It's limited a lot of ideas I've had.

You had those ideas right after the contract with the assignment clause was terminated though, right?

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#106

Post by soulnothing »

dboreham wrote: post #105
soulnothing wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intellectual assignment clause. It's limited a lot of ideas I've had. Combining that with constantly having to look for a way to provide a roof. It limits the ability to start a new business.

>Intellectual assignment clause. It's limited a lot of ideas I've had. You had those ideas right after the contract with the assignment clause was terminated though, right?

This was an assigned project, so the idea / implementation was not my own. The dev / architecture is something I use on most projects I work with though.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#107

Post by alchemism »

bigred100 wrote: post #84
alchemism wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, you are legally obliged to nothing more than the right to quit freely, and the right to be fired freely. Though ‘Severance Packages’ are very common for skilled/high-salaried employees, where you receive a payout of x weeks or months, negotiable but usually based on length of employment. This is done in part so the employer does not get a bad reputation in the market for skilled/high-salary talent. For a s…

That seems odd. I worked at a pretty bad (in terms of salary, working conditions) large tech firm and got 6 weeks severance.

The key phrase is “perceived as being generous” by doing so. All the better if the firm’s reputation would be poor otherwise. Nothing keeps a Glassdoor profile cleaner than paying departing employees well, attached to a gag-rule barring them from disparaging comments.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#108

Post by imba404 »

Corporate office cancelled our core server hardware line. I saw the pallets of moving boxes come into the office the night before.

I took the opportunity to upload all of my work to the company servers and close out what tickets I could. Came into work the next day in a suit, trying to maintain some semblance of class.

Hardware development got reduced 66%, myself included.

Saw it coming in the nebulous sense, but the layoffs happened about 6 months before I was ready, since I wanted the last product release on my resume.

Took me almost a year before I found stable employment again. 1/10 would not repeat the experience.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#109

Post by mooreds »

bitcoinmoney wrote: post #44
edent wrote: post #42

Yup. Happened to me. Big corporate decided most of our floor were surplus to requirements. Got an email on Sunday telling us to be in early on Monday for an off-site meeting. Got handed my redundancy / compromise agreement and told not to return to the office. And, the kicker, told my non-compete meant I couldn't work for a competitor during the redundancy process. It was devastating and emotionally wrecking. It was…

Are there unions for software devs?

Google pointed me here: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/9481...

Re: Ask HN: How many of you have been impacted by a layoff?

#110

Post by rebeccaskinner »

mikekchar wrote: post #91
rebeccaskinner wrote: post #29

My entire career as been driven, almost exclusively, by layoffs. I had been at my first job for about a year and was starting to think about moving on when my manager (who I think knew I was looking) told me that they were going to have to lay off a developer, and if I had an offer they'd rather I take it, otherwise they were going to have to let my co-worker go. I took the new job and moved cities to work at a start…

The industry is full of bust and boom. People see high tech as a gold rush and are often in it to make as much money as quickly as possible. Layoffs are inevitable in that situation. I've been through a few layoff rounds myself (though not always chosen to be the one laid off). One thing I did really helped me, though. The last time I got laid off, I intentionally took 6 months off. I got a job offer within weeks, bu…

I've never been in a position where I could financially justify being out of work for 6 months. Even if I theoretically have the savings to do it, growing up poor and intermittently homeless I just can't fathom the idea of spending that savings to live on when I could otherwise be working. When I've been laid off I treat getting my next job as my full time job, and I will spend 8-10 hours a day, seven days a week, either interviewing, networking, or researching companies I might like to work for.

Most recently I took about 6 weeks off between accepting my new job and actually starting it, and even that was extremely stressful on me. I spent most of it being certain that something bad was going to happen and I'd show up on my first day to find out that the job had evaporated.

Ultimately, I think people have different risk tolerances and dispositions for how they handle being out of work- but for everyone who's not independently wealthy it's going to be stressful. When your ability to survive is fully dependent on working, the knowledge of how capriciously it can be removed can be terrifying.

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