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Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

stripe.com

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Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#621

Post by jcadam »

Tade0 wrote: post #615
thunkle wrote: post #298

I work for Stripe and got laid off this morning. Sucks because my manager was only told this morning, and didn't have a chance to talk about how well I was doing or take any part in the decision making. We'll at least I'll get a break. I worked nights and weekends all of October.

This appears to be a trend. A while ago my project owner's role went "poof" and he was notified of this via email the same morning. The weird bit is that company policy is to award a generous notice period during which... you're not allowed to do anything. It's been half a year now - most of the benefits of that period(like salary) are gone. He still appears to have access to the office, but nothing to do there. I do…

They will always tell you your job is secure up until the day you're let go.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#622

Post by scarface74 »

bumby wrote: post #290
scarface74 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I hate about the internet rage machine. No research was done by people automatically assuming that the company was just going to send the employees packing with “thoughts and prayers”. That’s very generous severance and the company doing right by its employees. I don’t know how long the process is for non US citizens. But in my over 25 year career, and changing jobs eight times as a software developer, i…

> This is what I hate about the internet rage machine. I think the issue (also related to how we interface with the internet) is that most of these replies completely dodged the question. The OP was asking about personal accountability, not about "how are your going to make this as palatable as possible?" Consider two scenarios: (1) A manager fires half their workforce, but gives them a generous severance. In respons…

Whether the manager does one or two doesn’t have any effect on my being able to pay my bills.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#623

Post by midhhhthrow »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #440
baxtr wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will it change you fear?

I don't work at stripe, but in general after a big layoff there's still the same amount of work to be done but now you have less people to do it. It's not just the people that were laid off that are gone, but others will leave after the layoff occurs fearing more layoffs to come. Leading to even less people to do the work. It can become a downward spiral for those who are left.

At that point you really want to quit. At least until it gets to the point where the company is trying hard to keep employees That’s when they start handling out raises again

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#624

Post by IanPBann »

true_religion wrote: post #567
jgoodhcg wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 months is relatively generous but... > if you can't find a new job in 4 months, it's on you, This statement feels _wrong_. We are all subject to macro trends that we don't have control over. They impact our lives. Even the well off tech people but especially people in other industries.

I think what they mean is that morally, people need to take care of themselves. After four months, a past employer shouldn't still be on the hook for taking care of a person. The past employer has new employees and that money needs to go to them.

If they're cutting staff at that quantity it's almost certainly to save money, and the money saved from laying off employees shouldn't be going towards funding new hires.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#625

Post by ceres »

topaz0 wrote: post #618
ceres wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They could afford to dip into cash and keep everyone on board but their investors are more concerned about propping up the valuation This an example of how bullshit jobs are created. Why keep people on a payroll if you have no use for them anymore?

Suddenly realizing that 14% of your employees are not necessary for your business seems like a sign that something is wrong...

Yes, and? Businesses take risks and make mistakes all the time. Why should it be any different when it comes to hiring?

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#626

Post by andy_ppp »

jcadam wrote: post #621
Tade0 wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This appears to be a trend. A while ago my project owner's role went "poof" and he was notified of this via email the same morning. The weird bit is that company policy is to award a generous notice period during which... you're not allowed to do anything. It's been half a year now - most of the benefits of that period(like salary) are gone. He still appears to have access to the office, but nothing to do there. I do…

They will always tell you your job is secure up until the day you're let go.

That’s actually never how it worked at Yahoo! there was a tonne of notice that redundancies were happening and further to that more notice once your job was marked at risk. Seems particularly brutal that there doesn’t seem to be a clear process or reasoning - presumably some metric in GitHub that removes all context about what the employee was doing…

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#627

Post by AlwaysRock »

jgoodhcg wrote: post #558
radu_floricica wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offence, but they're not putting anybody in the electric chair. They're letting people go with pay until almost March - if you can't find a new job in 4 months, it's on you, and maybe they weren't wrong to give you up. A dynamic job market includes hiring and firings. At most they have to apologize for some disruption, and they more than made up for that with the severance packages. And about the language - "fire"…

4 months is relatively generous but... > if you can't find a new job in 4 months, it's on you, This statement feels _wrong_. We are all subject to macro trends that we don't have control over. They impact our lives. Even the well off tech people but especially people in other industries.

Right. A SWE I-IV might be easily able to step into another job, even another job with a similar comp level. But lots of folks, even tech folks, cant do it as quickly.

Director of QA? Might be tough and you'll likely turn down 10 manager of QA roles that want you to do hands on work along the way.

UX Research? You have a specific skill set that might be very useful at a large company but a lot of companies will want you to do more or handle more than you did previously.

Thats two examples but there are countless others. Plus a lot of folks go to Stripe as their first FANG+_job. They might not be able to step into another FANG+ role and could have to take a massive pay cut in their next roll.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#628

Post by midhhhthrow »

abeppu wrote: post #525

I know this isn't new or unique to Stripe, but the language used in these announcements to distance leadership from their choices is always so slimy. "We're not 'firing' or 'terminating' anyone; some people are just 'impacted' by our announcement that we have to 'say goodbye'." It makes repeated mentions of those who are "leaving" (the subject is the former employee) and avoids active verbs where the founders are the…

Being fired has a different meaning from being laid off. Fired implies performance. Lay off implies company restructure.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#629

Post by themagician »

verst wrote: post #564
jgoodhcg wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 months is relatively generous but... > if you can't find a new job in 4 months, it's on you, This statement feels _wrong_. We are all subject to macro trends that we don't have control over. They impact our lives. Even the well off tech people but especially people in other industries.

Good luck finding a job in this economy now. It's tough for everyone, even the most skilled. Many companies have outright hiring freezes. I just read that Amazon now has a hiring freeze for all corporate jobs, previously this only impacted retail, stores etc

People are hiring everywhere, and for like 1/3rd of the jobs you can work from home. It may get nasty in the next few months, but not today.

For most people in the job market today the unemployment rate is literally the lowest it's been in their entire lifetime.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#630

Post by extheat »

testemailfordg2 wrote: post #620

I am suddenly seeing articles about multiple US tech companies doing layoffs / pausing hiring on HN as well, not sure why and how all this relates....Has global recession started???

> Has global recession started

Long ago. It's going to get worse before it gets any better, IMO.

Companies have to be forward looking, not backward or just present looking. If there's tough times ahead, you want to be ahead of, not behind market headwinds.

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