i feel like im on another planet when single digit growth is considered so bad. and this requirement for endless growth invariably destroys every product
How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?
61–70 of 359 posts
Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US is in a recession. It has seen two quarters of negative economic growth.
This is a pointless battle. There is a US election this year so there is zero chance a recession will be admitted until mid November regardless of facts on the ground.
Data for Q3 will be released on Oct 27 (before the election). And current estimates for ~2.0% growth. Thus, the country will technically be "out of a recession" by election time.
I wonder if these people claiming that we are "technically in a recession" will suddenly start saying that economy has recovered come Oct 28.
Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?
#63My employer has literally stopped hiring engineers and product roles. Sales people are still being hired in droves though.
Aren't sales people "cheap" as their salary is negligible compared to sales bonuses if and only if they exceed their sales quota?
I don't know. My bosses claim good engineers are a nightmare to find. Cash is surely not the bottleneck.
Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?
#64We've seen a few people leave for other jobs, and are still hiring. Still getting offers from recruiters.
I haven't seen this play out in the real world yet beyond news stories.
Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?
#65The so called 'bar' references doesn't make much sense. There is no way to measure the performance of an individual. Leetcode style questions don't indicate performance. And what cannot be measured in the first place in a 4 hour interview, cannot have a 'bar'.
There are absolutely ways to measure the performance of an individual. That leetcode style questions are not a great indicator of ability to do the job well does not mean you cannot predict job performance at all.
The bar here is interview performance bar. There is no way to judge a person's performance in 4 hours. Anything you come up with can be hacked or imperfect. Therefore there is no way to set a bar.
Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?
#66We (large FANGish) are more or less in a hiring freeze but still grabbing a few new hires here and there. A friend just interviewed for SSE at AAPL and seemed to have the job only to be told they closed the req. I'm still getting lots of recruiter spam though so I think we're still fairly early in any sort of layoff cycle. The economy is still trucking. Despite many people trying to be first to declare it, we're not…
The US is in a recession. It has seen two quarters of negative economic growth.
We have horrible ways of measuring economic growth. I'll be worried when it starts affecting things in the real world.
Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?
#67Earlier 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…
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.
Depends on the company. The industry can’t seem to agree on what these terms mean.
Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a pointless battle. There is a US election this year so there is zero chance a recession will be admitted until mid November regardless of facts on the ground.
US gov uses a non-partisan third party think tank to officially declare recessions.
> a non-partisan third party think tank
How can such a thing possibly be non-partisan? The people running surely vote in the elections and thus care about the outcome, I don't see how they couldn't be partisan when their statements can have huge effects on the outcome.
Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?
#69The article doesn't answer the question. The list is also missing 2 of the big names which announced layoffs Oracle and Citrix. For more detailed and depressing discussion about layoffs check [1].
Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are absolutely ways to measure the performance of an individual. That leetcode style questions are not a great indicator of ability to do the job well does not mean you cannot predict job performance at all.
The bar here is interview performance bar. There is no way to judge a person's performance in 4 hours. Anything you come up with can be hacked or imperfect. Therefore there is no way to set a bar.
You can't perfectly judge someone in an interview context, but you can get pretty good if you ask the right questions with the right structure. Where I work the final round interview we give the candidates a week to write a design doc for a recent project they have worked on and present it to us in a 45 minute meeting. We deep dive on their impact, the decisions they made, the tradeoffs etc. It has been an extremely strong signal for us.