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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

#921
post #633

* Severance pay. We will pay 14 weeks of severance for all departing employees, and more for those with longer tenure. That is, those departing will be paid until at least February 21st 2023. * Bonus. We will pay our 2022 annual bonus for all departing employees, regardless of their departure date. (It will be prorated for people hired in 2022.) * PTO. We’ll pay for all unused PTO time (including in regions where tha…

The first round of layoffs generally has the best package.

Round 3+ really gets frugal.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#922
post #805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Does that mean you quit without notice and feel zero guilt about it, or are you a one-sided corporate simp? To me the world is a better place when an employment relationship is not purely contractual, on both sides, and I'm glad I live in a country that supports that.

Its okay to quit without notice... It's polite to give 2 weeks, but I wouldn't consider anyone a bad person for not doing so.

> To me the world is a better place when an employment relationship is not purely contractual, on both sides...

Do you think that should not be the case? And people should be obligated to stay after putting in their resignation?

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#923
post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was laid off at the beginning of October and still can’t find anything. It’s definitely a buyer’s market for senior level engineering talent.

It is time to apply jobs in New Zealand. Economy is strong, easy pathway to be permanent resident. Oh, and it is a beautiful country with super friendly people. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/apply-for-...

Low salaries, super expensive and poorly built housing, are just some of the complaints I’ve heard.

I mean there is a reason why so many Kiwi’s go work in Australia.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#924
post #884

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Zealand gets the unfortunate legacy of having to share the "zero COVID" mantra with a small group of fellow partners like China (which the NZ PM promoted harder than any other leader via speaker circuits). But otherwise I don't know much about NZ to critique.

Zero Covid may actually be plausible for small, isolated island nations with limited entry points, like NZ, even without locking everyone inside their homes like in China. And it's probably wise for countries to be using COVID as a test run for something worse. We live in the age of pandemics now, and will probably get hit by something worse eventually. Something like an airborne Ebola strain (50% mortality) or airbo…

NZ citizen here - zero Covid isn't plausible without regular lockdowns, for when Covid inevitably escapes quarantine.

We tried for zero Covid and failed.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#925
post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was laid off at the beginning of October and still can’t find anything. It’s definitely a buyer’s market for senior level engineering talent.

Me too. I was laid off at the beginning of October. I got three good offers, picked the best and signed the contract. I went through about 15 interviews and applied to maybe 50 positions.

I wonder what this spells for remote work?

If it’s a buyer’s market then employers can say “work in the office” - take it or leave it.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlimited PTO sucks for employees. It isn't the case in every state but some states, including mine, require employers to pay out PTO upon separation. So having unlimited automatically means you get paid out nothing on separation, a bad deal for employees. If you're allowed to take time off, then you have earned it but because of the policy, you don't get to realize the benefit of having earned it upon separation. Un…

I have actually received performance review notes at my current and former job (both with unlimited PTO) for not taking enough PTO... But in both cases, the CEOs actively encouraged PTO. At my current job, people take PTO regularly (several people at my department have taken roughly 3-4 months of PTO over the course of the past 12 months, and were promoted). What matters isn't time-in-seat, but whether tasks get done…

That's wonderful they emphasize that so strongly. I hope the rest of the culture is as healthy. If so, it sounds like a lovely place to work.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#927
post #913

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NZ does not have a zero covid strategy, and never did. Pretty much all of NZ's covid restrictions have been removed, and there are thousands of reported cases at the moment.

> The country moved to a nationwide lockdown on 17 August 2021, after the detection of one new local case outside of quarantine in Auckland. This is the very definition of "zero-COVID". They didn't abandon zero-COVID for another 5 months (Oct 21) when they finally admitted the data showed it didn't work. Of course it's good they stopped using the strategy. But I remember vividly how the NZ PM promoted zero-COVID (and…

> They didn't abandon zero-COVID for another 5 months (Oct 21) when they finally admitted the data showed it didn't work.

This doesn't sound right to me. I live in Australia, and we adopted a very similar policy. Lock down migration until a large percentage of the population was vaccinated. When the vaccine was rolled out, the restrictions eased. It wasn't because "the data showed it didn't work".

And fwiw "lockdown" for the most part meant restrictions on international travel. Most residents got to lead very regular lives for theozt part.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#928

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sucks because my manager was only told this morning As a manager I find their really curious. I guess they were trying to avoid leaks. I wonder how they chose who to lay off. Most recent performance rating? Next level managers impression?

Apologies for the throwaway account but it's for obvious reasons. I work at one of the mega-cap tech companies and manage a large team of engineers. It's extremely clear to me based on various pieces of information that I have access to that we'll be having a significant round of layoffs sometimes in the next quarter or two, yet I have zero involvement in the process. I suspect that at some point I'll be officially "…

Give it some time. I've been the manager of multiple engineering teams that had to undergo cuts, and in most cases I found myself in a situation similar to yours: it was obvious it was coming within months or weeks, but nobody was consulting me (which of course led me to believe I was being cut too).

But in every case, I was either consulted for input, or at least given a courtesy heads before the actual layoffs occurred.

In one case I was looped in a few weeks out and asked to help narrow things down. In another case I was simply shown a list of names the night before and offered a token opportunity to object. The list was sound, and I'm pretty sure my boss was doing me a solid on that one by sparing me the hardest decisions.

Line managers aren't always looped in for a few good reasons. Mainly, to prevent leaks. But also I think it can go a long way towards maintaining morale in a post layoff environment. There are countless anecdotes in these threads with people claiming their managers had no idea. Those same employees are now far less likely to be resentful of their managers for laying off their friends.

Best of luck. I don't envy being in your position.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#929
post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was laid off at the beginning of October and still can’t find anything. It’s definitely a buyer’s market for senior level engineering talent.

Me too. I was laid off at the beginning of October. I got three good offers, picked the best and signed the contract. I went through about 15 interviews and applied to maybe 50 positions.

I just want to state the obvious, interviewing is a different skill than developing. You get better at interviewing with practice and the more interviews you do, the better you get.

Also, you got to be confident and toughen up before your interviews, because even if some would be interesting, constructive done in a pleasant way by nice people, many will be nasty. I got through many interviews were there were several people acting like machine guns, spitting dozens of sometimes silly questions just trying to catch me with a mistake.

Boy, how much I would wanted to switch roles a bit and show them that is not a constructive way to lead an interview.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#930

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to the recent news of other tech companies making their employees work nights and weekends before laying them off, it is easy to interpret your earlier message such that Stripe did the same.

> recent news of other tech companies making their employees work nights and weekends Are there any companies aside from Twitter that would fall under this? Because that's the only one I've seen mentioned in the news that way, but you make it sound like there are plenty others. So I was curious if I simply missed something.

Startups. If they do the math and the trendline doesn't seem good, they'll make their teams go through a grind before layoffs. It's not necessarily to eke out a bit of productivity, per se, but they're essentially throwing hail marys in the hope that something will happen.

Of course, when it inevitably doesn't they axe a few and the rest go back to work.

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