Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Got laid off from Microsoft yesterday with 10.000 people

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 41 posts

Re: Got laid off from Microsoft yesterday with 10.000 people

#21

Post by mrcwinn »

blakesterz wrote: post #4

Sorry to hear about the layoffs there, and everywhere off. > we were just cut off with 10000 people by random selection algorithm. Can you (or anyone) elaborate on how that works? Someone wrote something that does "select empolyee_id from employees limit 10000 order by random" and that's who got laid off? It's a layoff lottery and the winners got laid off? I don't know how layoffs at huge companies work, maybe that's…

It's not how it works everywhere. In fact it's likely not how it works anywhere at all.

No competent business operator works this way. It's very much about improving a financial metric (say, sales efficiency) and understanding either where low performers are or which teams are supporting initiatives that may suddenly be deprioritized.

But more importantly than any of this, I'm sorry to hear people have lost their jobs. Better days are ahead.

Re: Got laid off from Microsoft yesterday with 10.000 people

#23

Post by luckylion »

orra wrote: post #18
b0sk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't make sense at all. Maybe they identified a larger pool of employees and then applied random selection algorithm to that pool. No way they are laying off superstars.

> No way they are laying off superstars. Shrug. Superstars cost more. Besides, companies don't love superstars do they? They want replaceable commodities.

They'll settle for commodities, but they want results. "Superstars" are great, because they'll get you results. You don't want to rely on having someone do the work of a whole team, but you certainly won't fire them, even if they cost three times as much as one of the ten people they replace.

Re: Got laid off from Microsoft yesterday with 10.000 people

#25

Post by seaman1921 »

danpalmer wrote: post #10
Kevin578 wrote: post #7

there's no way they chose ppl to get laid off by a random selection lmao

Please try to be a little more sensitive, bear in mind who you're replying to and what they're going through.

please - layoff with fat severance does not give them a license to spread misinformation

Re: Got laid off from Microsoft yesterday with 10.000 people

#26

Post by reflexe »

blakesterz wrote: post #4

Sorry to hear about the layoffs there, and everywhere off. > we were just cut off with 10000 people by random selection algorithm. Can you (or anyone) elaborate on how that works? Someone wrote something that does "select empolyee_id from employees limit 10000 order by random" and that's who got laid off? It's a layoff lottery and the winners got laid off? I don't know how layoffs at huge companies work, maybe that's…

From my experience (as a team lead who had to do that a few times unfortunately):

First, each department is usually allocated a number of employees they should layoff (based on high management priority).

Then, each department has to decide how to allocate it internally (cut-off teams entirely, or layoff a number of employees per team).

Then it goes to mid level management and lower management which has to choose specific employees (based on a number of criterias but usually based on performance).

Re: Got laid off from Microsoft yesterday with 10.000 people

#27

Post by yodsanklai »

blakesterz wrote: post #4

Sorry to hear about the layoffs there, and everywhere off. > we were just cut off with 10000 people by random selection algorithm. Can you (or anyone) elaborate on how that works? Someone wrote something that does "select empolyee_id from employees limit 10000 order by random" and that's who got laid off? It's a layoff lottery and the winners got laid off? I don't know how layoffs at huge companies work, maybe that's…

My guess, a little bit of everything. Recent performance, cost, location, team/project...

In my huge company, we've seen all sort of cases. Very recent employees (which weren't even evaluated yet), "low performers" (but I think it's a misnomer, some "low performers" are productive employees who recently didn't meet some arbitrary expectations). Some entire teams were fired, in some instances they tried to reassign some high performers within these teams.

Also managers weren't consulted, and everything was kept secret.

Edit: some countries have additional legal constraints too and the process may be more transparent than in the US.

Re: Got laid off from Microsoft yesterday with 10.000 people

#28

Post by mrcwinn »

okamiueru wrote: post #17

Can someone shed some light how this works in the US? What are the conditions for termination there? Do you get X months severance?

Different states have varying legal requirements, though many tech companies anchor to California because it often sets the floor. So if you solve for California, you're likely solving for most of your workforce. In general, yes, at major tech companies there is severance, payout of any accrued paid time off, and sometimes there's additional payment to cover COBRA payments for 1+ month(s), as well as resources for finding a new job. Some companies will also extend termination dates to help an employee snag an additional month of health coverage. For folks on H1B there is almost always additional legal representation support as well.

I think large tech companies do an exceptional job supporting employees. But of course, for the person affected, still scary nevertheless. My heart goes out for those people.

Re: Got laid off from Microsoft yesterday with 10.000 people

#30

Post by dagw »

rutierut wrote: post #13

There are university master degrees for UI/UX in the states? Can you get a PhD in something UI/UX related as well?

There are university master degrees for UI/UX in the states?

Don't they have that everywhere? The Human Computer Interaction deparment at the (European) university I went have both Master and PhD students and do all kinds of UI and UX related research.

Post reply on HN