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Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

reuters.com

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Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#421

Post by jmholla »

kristopolous wrote: post #346
adasdasdas wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, most mass layoffs are done without consulting the directly/skip managers who actually know who the strong performers are.

No. Most layoffs are done by the managers being given either quotas or burn rate caps and tasked with producing lists of people to layoff. The point of "many bosses" is if your manager knows you work on other projects, it's easier to leave you off the list. The point of "no bosses" is no manager is tasked with considering you. You're not on anyone's books. There's numerous ways of doing this if you're interested. If…

> The point of "no bosses" is no manager is tasked with considering you. You're not on anyone's books. There's numerous ways of doing this if you're interested.

Can you speak more to this? I don't know that I've ever seen this somewhere I worked.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#422

Post by bko »

kika wrote: post #358
akira2501 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're describing a monopolized labor market. Sure, there may not be felonious collusion, but many of the illegal elements of a monopoly are very much present.. as you essentially point out. I'm also not sure why you would be surprised to learn there is collusion, the size and timing of these blocks are certainly curious, and I think further investigation would reveal quite a bit more than you're imagining here. I al…

The war on wages is being waged (? is that the same word?) by the Fed. Companies just follow.

That's a good point. Few people realize that a big part of fighting inflation is getting wages down. Jerome Powell said as much in an interview in May of last year:

> So in principle, it seems as though, by moderating demand, we could see vacancies come down, and as a result—and they could come down fairly significantly and I think put supply and demand at least closer together than they are, and that that would give us a chance to have lower—to get inflation—to get wages down and then get inflation down without having to slow the economy and have a recession and have unemployment rise materially. So there’s a path to that. [0]

To be fair, much of the wage inflation (particularly in FAANG) was also led by an easy money policy.

I take issue with heavy handed manipulation of the money supply that leads to these weird dynamics. I've written about it before [1] that a big risk is ever growing Fed power in the form of heavier regulation or a digital currency. Imagine someone can flip a switch and decide that everyone earning above $X will take a pay cut to fight inflation, all without any oversight or judicial proceeding.

[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/transcript-fed-chief-powells-po...

[1] https://mleverything.substack.com/p/inflation-and-government...

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#423

Post by doopashoop »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #403
floxy wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yahoo, Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Apple

Glad to see people put those others in the list. Too many people assumed that Microsoft, Oracle, Yahoo, and related companies weren't matching offers and were somehow "worse" to work for. It was exactly the opposite. They were matching offers, and even poaching engineers from the other FAANGs. Yet they never got any respect.

[flagged]

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#424

Post by ChicagoDave »

Yoric wrote: post #55
ChicagoDave wrote: post #13

If you’re laid off from anywhere, are in a position to join a very early startup, love Texas Hold’em, and have technical or design experience, drop me a note. https://mach9poker.com/

If you haven't done so yet, you should post in the monthly "Who's Hiring" thread.

Comments seem to be closed for January who’s hiring list.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#425

Post by kika »

bko wrote: post #422
kika wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The war on wages is being waged (? is that the same word?) by the Fed. Companies just follow.

That's a good point. Few people realize that a big part of fighting inflation is getting wages down. Jerome Powell said as much in an interview in May of last year: > So in principle, it seems as though, by moderating demand, we could see vacancies come down, and as a result—and they could come down fairly significantly and I think put supply and demand at least closer together than they are, and that that would give…

Not just Powell, every Fed kept talking about "we don't want to repeat history". What they meant is 1970-1979, when they were beating down the economy for a decade and when they decided to let the pressure go, inflation went right back where it was before the beating. Because the wages were still up and with the power of the unions it was very difficult to bring them down. At least that's how it was explained to me by a stock market expert.

So until we give up our fat checks from FAANG they will keep beating FAANG down. I dunno, fuck them maybe? But the same expert told me many times: do not play against the Fed.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#426

Post by throwaheyy »

heleninboodler wrote: post #367
arwineap wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the way they converted to unlimited PTO was by paying out people's vacation time with a one time payout. In which case, they didn't lose benefit at all

When my company switched from accrued to unlimited PTO, the way they did it was to tell everyone that until their balance got down to zero, they needed to report their time off. So if you quit before you got your balance down to zero, you had it paid out, but most people probably just burned through their balance within a year or so and the liability was gone.

Wow, that’s shitty. Because you could simply have taken the same time off under unlimited PTO as by burning down the accrual, the company effectively zeroed out accrued vacation time. I’d be pissed that happened to me.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#427

Post by postalrat »

sosodev wrote: post #371
redleggedfrog wrote: post #305

So one 1 out of 20 are getting let go. Looking around near 50 employee company I work for I easily see 2.5 employees I would let go just because they're near useless. Hell, I'd say it's at least 5. I'd say unless you've got a good manager, really good hiring, and are keeping close tabs on the technical people (just to make clear, I'm one of them those technical people) I figure you've at least got 1 our of 20 you sho…

You'll say this until you are the one let go. Companies are irrational and layoffs of this scale are not capable of targeting the poor performers.

At least you have actual skills to find a new job.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#428

Post by pandaman »

simplotek wrote: post #404
dasil003 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an uncharitable take. The ability to fire at-will is the reason companies in the US are able to hire and pay as high as they do. As a dual-national Brazilian-American who has also spent years living in Europe, the social contracts are very different, and different people might value different things, but I'll take the downside layoff risk in exchange for upside in pay and mobility.

> This is an uncharitable take. The ability to fire at-will is the reason companies in the US are able to hire and pay as high as they do. I feel there is no rational basis for this belief, and it's mostly guided by wishful thinking to fool yourself into believing that all this penance leads to some kind of salvation. It doesn't. There are highly paid professionals in other countries who benefit from higher worke pro…

>Heck, I personally know a FANG who was forced to pay overtime for oncalls in europe while US workers only get the pager app and the shaft.

It does not follow that it leads to greater disposable income. Retail workers in the US also get paid overtime yet their disposable income is nowhere close to that of exempt (no overtime) programmers. Basically, with the tax rates in most of Europe, one's disposable income would be less even if the nominal income had been as same as in the US but it is not even close so you are, at best, misinformed when you think you get greater disposable income.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#429

Post by ironick09 »

bialpio wrote: post #382
opportune wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They lost it going forward, and also lost any kind of arbitrage when paired with salary increases. Eg my accrued vacation is “worth” 10% more after a 10% salary bump than before it.

It also serves as a nice buffer when you are switching jobs - you can take the PTO and still be employed (& so covered by health insurance for a bit longer, and stocks are still vesting), making for a nice break from work.

So you have unlimited PTO, what’s stopping you from taking a vacation.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#430

Post by DenisM »

kristopolous wrote: post #412
ZhadruOmjar wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great write up and very useful in an industry where a lot of people seem to think "doing a good job" is enough to get recognised, lots of money and continuous promotions. The transition from IC into Management really needs a head shift and I think a lot of software engineers aren't prepared for the machinations of modern corps.

I've gone in between both roles. I can be a CTO of a $50 million company and just another senior engineer at a $5 billion one. Probably the most approachable explanation of this phenomena is in Reid Hoffman's blitzscaling. I was looking for the diagram and I found it on some random blog https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/0*LDHDNGnfy2IJmIWE Anyway, if we extend this analogy, I could be say, an important member of a vill…

How do you position yourself when looking for a job? Divergent background of this sort could be a liability.

And then you have to be explicit about what you want in your next role.

Do you have two different resumes?

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