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Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

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Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#851

Post by throwaway292939 »

pc86 wrote: post #485
dmurdoch wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a company that did layoffs recently as well, about double this size. Our managers also had no idea until day of. The entire day was spent watching co workers google calendars and slack accounts. Once they got a meeting booked with HR, their meeting titles all turned into "busy", so we would know who is getting cut and who wasn't. It was a brutal day. In our case I don't think they were picking people based…

Is it "really weird," though? Layoffs, especially when you start talking about entire teams, divisions, products, etc. is about revenue, profitability, and righting the ship (or safeguarding the ship so you don't have to right it 6 months from now). Whether Jim got "exceeds expectations" or "greatly exceeds expectations" is irrelevant when an EVP needs to trim $12M off their budget and Jim's department lost $9M last…

Exactly. Layoffs are done in a way order to preserve the company given less resources.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#852

Post by therealcamino »

SoftTalker wrote: post #602
mengibar10 wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a well position and well oiled company is in fear of losing business and firing people how come you expect to find jobs let alone stable jobs. You give your 4-5 years to a company and the company dumps you at the first sight of hardship. I think Stripe made a bad choice when firing people. They should have decreased salaries, percentage wise more at the management level and try to keep their workers. I wouldn't wa…

> You give your 4-5 years to a company and the company dumps you at the first sight of hardship. You got paid every month for those 4-5 years right? That's the settlement of what the company owes you for the time you gave them. I've had this point of view for a long time. Every payday, you and your employer are even. If you feel that you are giving your employer more than they are giving you, you need to negotiate a…

Except none of us are robots, or interchangeable parts of a machine. Being human is not a weakness.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#853

Post by Izkata »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #766
oblio wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel most decent engineers can get rehired elsewhere with 14 weeks of runway. Oh, sweet summer children and children of recession free economies for IT. If job openings fall to 10-20-30% of current ones and tens, hundreds of thousands of IT workers are fired, good luck getting hired quickly, when any of the few good remaining job opening has hundreds of good applicants. We'll be back to the days of: Sure, you can…

Can we please retire this "sweet summer child" thing? It is annoying af, rude, and likely never written by anyone over 30.

> and likely never written by anyone over 30.

As someone in my 30s, I've always thought of it as an "old-timey/old person phrase", same as sibling comment's "bless your heart".

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#854

Post by [deleted] »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #766
oblio wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel most decent engineers can get rehired elsewhere with 14 weeks of runway. Oh, sweet summer children and children of recession free economies for IT. If job openings fall to 10-20-30% of current ones and tens, hundreds of thousands of IT workers are fired, good luck getting hired quickly, when any of the few good remaining job opening has hundreds of good applicants. We'll be back to the days of: Sure, you can…

Can we please retire this "sweet summer child" thing? It is annoying af, rude, and likely never written by anyone over 30.

[deleted]

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#855

Post by chasd00 »

striper123 wrote: post #816
bigstripedrama wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry you're going through this and hope you don't have too much stress. I also echo the sentiment about needing a break, I wish I got laid off today. I'm not sure I can handle the Stripe culture that emerges from this.

I also wish I got laid off today. Stripe is a good company. But the Covid boom really fucked a lot of things up. I genuinely, no exaggeration, not felt my job was safe for a single day working here for over a year, and the worst part is even after this 1000 person layoff I still don't feel safe! It does not feel safe having a job that is so intimately linked to consumer spending. The things I would have done with 14…

yeah it's hard for me to wrap my head around this. I'm very well paid and have a lot of money in the bank but grew up poor so the moment i'm unemployed all i can think of is the wolves will be at the door any minute. A break or like the sabbaticals people take because of "burn out" seem like an unacceptable risk to livelihood. Again, i think it just comes from growing up poor but if i'm not working i get really really scared that i'm two steps away from living in a shelter no matter how much is in savings/investments.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#856

Post by csomar »

oblio wrote: post #747
xyst wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel most decent engineers can get rehired elsewhere with 14 weeks of runway. I do agree this is generous af. Most companies just give out minimum severance. No acceleration of vesting. Healthcare continues for maybe 1-2 months. I know at my current company, I will lose all PTO.

> I feel most decent engineers can get rehired elsewhere with 14 weeks of runway. Oh, sweet summer children and children of recession free economies for IT. If job openings fall to 10-20-30% of current ones and tens, hundreds of thousands of IT workers are fired, good luck getting hired quickly, when any of the few good remaining job opening has hundreds of good applicants. We'll be back to the days of: Sure, you can…

Calm down. Demand is super strong, even right now. It's almost impossible to get a decent software engineer who has a strong command of the English language and can articulate himself.

Most developers hitting the market with CVs are bootcamp generated and they don't have the slightest idea (and neither the interest) of what they are doing. They'll disappear as soon as the money does.

Unless you have a family and live in the Bay Area, you should always be able to move to a low cost of living and wait for the recession. It'd cost much less than $30k/year to spend a year in Kuala Lumpur with all your food delivered.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#857

Post by kyleee »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #377
jasmer wrote: post #202

This is the part I don't like. Stripe is a hugely successful company and they have no urgent material need to let people go. This is an optimization effort. I actually do believe that 'pruning' is a healthy thing for organizations, to enable them to be nimble and dynamic - however - obviously this comes at great social cost. The benefits of 'pruning' come at the cost of externalizing regular, creating real human chal…

What’s so bad about optimization efforts? I would prefer normalizing layoffs with 12 weeks severance package to normalizing developers who code 10 hours a week and whose cost the companies inevitably pass on to their consumers.

May as well shoot for both actually

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#858

Post by kemiller »

megablast wrote: post #764
kemiller wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Took me ~3-4 months of steady work, but good things are still out there.

> Took me ~3-4 months of steady work Were you unemployed or working.

I knew the end was coming so I started early but yeah, unemployed. It’s tougher to find senior IC positions but they are definitely out there. I love where I landed and we are hiring aggressively across all experience levels so DM me if you’re looking and don’t mind a node backend.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#859

Post by csomar »

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

Unemployment is near all time lows. The number of employed people is near all time high, and many have quit the job market (due to Covid). We are quite far from the scenario you are describing.

Finding your dream job? Maybe not. Finding a job in this market? It should be cakes.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#860

Post by refurb »

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.

Sorry to hear that. No matter what it's always tough.

But I'll share that I've been on the other side - months and months of talk of layoffs, then 6 months later announcement that layoffs will be rolled out over 3 months. Then finally hearing almost a year after rumors started.

I'll say getting it over with has a certain appeal.

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