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How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#11

Post by thwayunion »

dominotw wrote: post #9
sarchertech wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staff engineer is just title inflation for what used to be senior engineer. Senior engineers at most companies just means this isn’t your first job right out of college.

I have 15 yoe and have senior software engineer title so do people with 2 yrs experience. I might be doing same thing over and over. Time to make a radical change :/.

There's also nothing wrong with plateauing for a while or even topping out, especially if you are generally happy with life and career. There's pride to be had in being a good individual contributor; not everyone needs to make it to Senior Super Special Principal :)

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#12

Post by leeny »

spacemadness wrote: post #8

“interviewing.io is both a mock interview platform and an eng hiring marketplace (engineers use us for technical interview practice, and top performers get fast-tracked at companies)” The source for this article has some strong incentives in the area of perceptions of increased competitiveness.

Author here. For what it's worth, I added the conclusion pretty late in the game. When I first ran the data, it looked like engineers were barely getting laid off (because of engineers not opting in to layoff lists as much as others). And the graph about the bar going up came in as a zero hour suggestion from someone who proofread the piece.

Believe me, I'd be much happier if eng hiring were back in full swing. With all the freezes and layoffs, we've taken a bigger hit than we can hope to gain back by shilling interview practice.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#14

Post by [deleted] »

system16 wrote: post #3

> Articles like these drive engineers to speculate on Blind and on Reddit, in the internet equivalent of hushed whispers, about whether they’re next. Bizarre to reference a Blind thread from 2019 discussing Uber layoffs to back up a claim that engineers are reading the previously linked articles in the future and speculating about "whether they're next."

[deleted]

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#16

Post by [deleted] »

spacemadness wrote: post #8

“interviewing.io is both a mock interview platform and an eng hiring marketplace (engineers use us for technical interview practice, and top performers get fast-tracked at companies)” The source for this article has some strong incentives in the area of perceptions of increased competitiveness.

[deleted]

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#18

Post by noir_lord »

thwayunion wrote: post #10
lumost wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the Senior market is saturated? this is an early sign companies are getting nervous about bloat. After the '08 recession many companies rushed to ditch Architect titles as they found that the role did not serve the interests of their productive engineers or the companies higher ups. Companies that had gone heavy on such talent might find themselves stuck. I recall seeing talks on "Staff Engineer" and thinking that…

> So the Senior market is saturated? I am not sure I would say saturated, but yeah, the Sr. SWE market is definitely not as tight as it was a year ago for most role types. However, it does depend on qualifications and company type. Seniors for R&D positions (so, PhD with 5+ years in product-focused R&D) are still basically impossible to hire. Friends tell me that hiring seniors at mid-pay or low-pay companies is stil…

Might be true in the US, not what I’m seeing have seen in the UK.

Here big companies are taking kids straight out of uni and boot camping them because decent juniors are hard to find.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#19

Post by theteapot »

outworlder wrote: post #5
lumost wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the Senior market is saturated? this is an early sign companies are getting nervous about bloat. After the '08 recession many companies rushed to ditch Architect titles as they found that the role did not serve the interests of their productive engineers or the companies higher ups. Companies that had gone heavy on such talent might find themselves stuck. I recall seeing talks on "Staff Engineer" and thinking that…

> I recall seeing talks on "Staff Engineer" and thinking that this was going to be the next version of "Architect". Engineers who's primary job is to write code often dislike working with people in such roles. That depends. If they are actively involved and the architectural decisions are sound, it's fine. If they are "drive-by architects", showing up, dropping a bunch of useless boxes they read on some book, and the…

Drive by architects don't read books. They read AWS's latest product brochure and think "yes".

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#20

Post by pineconewarrior »

I have not seen or heard of any engineering cuts in any of my circle's workplaces. Only supporting staff (project managers etc).

I clicked on a few of the google sheets linked in the article and it seems (at least per my random selection) that this seems to be the case at these places too.

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