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Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

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Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#871

Post by hesk »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #845
lmm wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We have to let them go" is absoultely distancing and dodging responsibility. "We have decided to lay them off" would be the responsible thing to say.

Quote: "John and I are fully responsible". Analyzing the semantics of a phrase and then stating it implies "person A is saying/doing X", when right there person A is explicitly saying/doing Not X, is nonsensical. My favorite color is blue. I like coffee => "his favorite color is brown!".

You're quoting from a section of the text where they are explicit in their responsibility to disprove that they use distancing language in a different section of the text.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#872

Post by tptacek »

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.

You're right, and this is in the guidelines. Swipes like these (even if they feel jovial by the writers) sap credibility from posts and civility from the threads.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#873

Post by runeblaze »

csomar wrote: post #856
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…

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…

Note that for some people being laid off and not quickly finding a job can mean being kicked back to whatever possibly authoritarian country they came from.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#874

Post by [deleted] »

csomar wrote: post #856
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…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#875

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #874
csomar wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#876

Post by Jagerbizzle »

chasd00 wrote: post #855
striper123 wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reall…

I don't intend to come across as trite, but based on my reading of this comment I'm sure you'll find another satisfactory job soon. Relax and enjoy the time to reflect.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#877

Post by lumost »

unexpected wrote: post #740
jcadam wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

16 years. Working at the Senior/Staff level. Most recently Clojure work. I’ve done a lot of Java of course, although I’ve been rejected from some of those jobs because I spent the last year doing Clojure full time instead of Java.

This is monumentally stupid, but I wonder if you should just leave the last year of Clojure off of your resume.

Specific language expertise rarely matters. I intentionally avoid discussing specific technologies used to achieve results/goals/services unless it's highly relevant (e.g. creating a RESTful web service etc.)

It's good to have your technologies listed, and be honest if your doing something out of your comfort zone... but there really isn't a technology out there that can't be picked up in 1-3 months.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#878

Post by wnolens »

RestlessMind wrote: post #352
wnolens wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sometimes even get rewarded with huge amounts of money from the very companies they screwed over. This is the norm I've witnessed. They're rewarded for making bold bets, whether or not they pay off.

Isn't that how things should be in a society? We should encourage people to make bold bets and start real companies like Stripe which offer valuable services. I am happy that they made a bold bet, just like I am happy people start companies when they can easily join an established company and have a comfortable life. Just to be sure, there is a big difference between a bold bet based on your market or product insight…

The reward is the oodles of money you get when you succeed.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#879

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

nullc wrote: post #806
mik3y wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's normal for layoffs to be planned and executed by a very small group, typically to avoid leaks or creating hysteria ahead of decisions being finalized. This in turn means less-than-perfect information is available, and so less-than-scientific cuts are made. "Ideally", your layoff strategy dictates some cuts regardless of performance: Say we're shutting down the self-driving car division, folding up recruitin…

> , typically to avoid leaks or creating hysteria ahead of decisions being finalized When a layoff is known to be coming, the best and most employable people will often head for the doors quickly... leaving the company with a greater concentration of less desirable employees. If it's by surprise then you'll lose fewer of the people you wanted to keep.

I don't that's really generally true. If it seems like the company is a "sinking ship", then yes, people who can see the writing on the wall and have food opportunities elsewhere will often leave quickly.

But in this case, nobody is worried about Stripe's long term trajectory or viability. I doubt the best and most employable people are leaving Stripe.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#880

Post by csomar »

tptacek wrote: post #868
csomar wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's almost impossible to get a decent software engineer who has a strong command of the English language and can articulate himself. No, it's not.

Sure if you are a FAANG, hot startup with funding or offering $300k/year. But if you are a regular company with a normal budget, you are left with nothing.

And I understand this is the market. I'm just pointing is that it's not as near bad as the previous poster has claimed.

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