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Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

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Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#481

Post by atomicnumber3 »

triyambakam wrote: post #444
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a bigco that followed this approach. I think the alleged fungibility of programmers is surface-level. Sure - ~any decent programmer can jump into ~any codebase and do your JIRA tickets. But there's a more holistic ownership you miss out on that's going to be the difference between a system aging gracefully and a system becoming a giant hunk of butchered junk that's been one-small-jira-ticket-ed to death o…

> Programmers were expected to stay either 1 year or 10 years, and you'd be compensated according to which bucket you were falling into How did this work? You got a raise after 10 years?

Ah no nothing like that. And 10 is just a pithy way to say that they want people to stay a long time if they're good. And they did that by, each year, if they wanted you out, you got a very small bonus. If they wanted you to stay, you got a very large bonus. That's all I meant - they retain you by giving you many dollars via payroll.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#482

Post by hardware2win »

whatever1 wrote: post #151
softwaredoug wrote: post #63

Listened to a great podcast about layoffs yesterday ( https://hbr.org/podcast/2023/02/why-many-companies-get-layof... ) The takeaway is that layoffs are extremely trust destroying for employees NOT laid off, and in the end not clear they're a financial net positive. Both with direct and indirect costs (lack of engagement from employees, etc).

It takes long time for the layoff effects to hit the company. The main effect is that you lose the trust of the top performers. These will be the in the lookout for new opportunities the day after the layoffs are done. If you cut 10%, expect 10% from the top to flee within a couple of years. The second effect is related to the fact that companies usually target older people with expensive jobs. In an a big org these…

Why would actual top performers care this much if they would find new job easily + theyre probably not being targeted

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#483

Post by makeitdouble »

hardware2win wrote: post #482
whatever1 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes long time for the layoff effects to hit the company. The main effect is that you lose the trust of the top performers. These will be the in the lookout for new opportunities the day after the layoffs are done. If you cut 10%, expect 10% from the top to flee within a couple of years. The second effect is related to the fact that companies usually target older people with expensive jobs. In an a big org these…

Why would actual top performers care this much if they would find new job easily + theyre probably not being targeted

A wild guess:

- The people let go might have been good friends or at least people they enjoyed working with.

- While they’re not targeted, their coworkers are, they’ll sympathize with the tension. Also that workforce is now doing the same work amount with fewer people.

- They are expected to do a lot of education and bringing people up to speed. More churn means more work, and it’s also harder emotionally if you’re not sure how long the person will stay in the company.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#484

Post by clnq »

whatever1 wrote: post #151
softwaredoug wrote: post #63

Listened to a great podcast about layoffs yesterday ( https://hbr.org/podcast/2023/02/why-many-companies-get-layof... ) The takeaway is that layoffs are extremely trust destroying for employees NOT laid off, and in the end not clear they're a financial net positive. Both with direct and indirect costs (lack of engagement from employees, etc).

It takes long time for the layoff effects to hit the company. The main effect is that you lose the trust of the top performers. These will be the in the lookout for new opportunities the day after the layoffs are done. If you cut 10%, expect 10% from the top to flee within a couple of years. The second effect is related to the fact that companies usually target older people with expensive jobs. In an a big org these…

> The main effect is that you lose the trust of the top performers. These will be the in the lookout for new opportunities the day after the layoffs are done. If you cut 10%, expect 10% from the top to flee within a couple of years.

I've been through one of the tech layoffs that happened during the pandemic, so N=1 and all, but this was exactly what happened.

On the day of the layoffs, few top performers were affected. It was a classic layoff with an HR email and immediate lockout. Managers of affected people learned later. Some people learned they were being laid off after hearing it in mainstream media first.

After 6 months, many best performers (more than 10% in my opinion) have left after struggling with low morale. A lot of company knowledge was lost, portions of the codebase became unmaintainable, projects went from being certainly doable to being in perpetual uncertainty about cancellation. The responsibilities of the the top performers fell on less experienced people, some received promotions but buckled under the pressure in disruptive ways.

Two years later, the company is still rebuilding but has obvious competency gaps. There was also difficulty in filling them because HR was disproportionally affected by layoffs. The distrust in management persists and more than a few people are openly talking about leaving. Though the hiring in tech has cooled down which had a chilling effect on people leaving, too.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#485

Post by foobiekr »

pokstad wrote: post #396
postexitus wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that value justifies the cost, there should not be a problem. Some of that value may move to low CoL areas and offer comparable value for much lower cost - then things will start to become complicated - this is totally based on the assumption that that value is only available in high CoL areas.

The problem is when you hire those high CoL areas, extract value by training others, and then discard them. This will make high CoL workers more hesitant to join a globalized employer.

You say that like the sequence described has not been common since the nineties.

Assuming you knew that, why is now different?

And if you didn’t know that, there’s your answer.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#486

Post by foobiekr »

whatever1 wrote: post #151
softwaredoug wrote: post #63

Listened to a great podcast about layoffs yesterday ( https://hbr.org/podcast/2023/02/why-many-companies-get-layof... ) The takeaway is that layoffs are extremely trust destroying for employees NOT laid off, and in the end not clear they're a financial net positive. Both with direct and indirect costs (lack of engagement from employees, etc).

It takes long time for the layoff effects to hit the company. The main effect is that you lose the trust of the top performers. These will be the in the lookout for new opportunities the day after the layoffs are done. If you cut 10%, expect 10% from the top to flee within a couple of years. The second effect is related to the fact that companies usually target older people with expensive jobs. In an a big org these…

Top performers are pets. You use layoffs to generate excess opex savings in order to retain them.

You guys are acting like companies are too dumb to think of these very basic concepts. I have personally witnessed discussions that can roughly be described as “ok we need to add an extra three people in order to fund retention for X.”

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#487

Post by jokethrowaway »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #481
triyambakam wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Programmers were expected to stay either 1 year or 10 years, and you'd be compensated according to which bucket you were falling into How did this work? You got a raise after 10 years?

Ah no nothing like that. And 10 is just a pithy way to say that they want people to stay a long time if they're good. And they did that by, each year, if they wanted you out, you got a very small bonus. If they wanted you to stay, you got a very large bonus. That's all I meant - they retain you by giving you many dollars via payroll.

Sensible, but if they can afford to give you a substantial bonus every year, you're making way too little to begin with.

You're anyway better with job hopping.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#488

Post by SergeAx »

postexitus wrote: post #368
pokstad wrote: post #335

As a former GitLab employee from an expensive region, I’m a little concerned Sid didn’t layout the layoff process more transparently. Were high earners more likely to be laid off while lower CoL areas were kept? This was always a distant fear in working for a very global team where I knew teammates from other countries did the same job as me for much less.

The answer is yes, in all cases, he doesn't need to state in explicitly. So what? Layoffs are being done to save costs or to signal doing so to shareholders. It is not a "let's be meritocratic and only cut the lowest performers" exercise. The overarching question is, with our insistence on remote working etc, how will we ever justify hiring from high CoL areas again?

> It is not a "let's be meritocratic and only cut the lowest performers" exercise.

Why not do some extra homework and really cut the lowest performers, while we are here anyway?

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#489

Post by bydlocoder »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #392
xyzelement wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, equivalently, "people like that are paid a lot and are engrossed in their careers." When someone makes $500k+, what does "unpaid overtime" even mean?

Money doesn’t magically make burnout go away. In fact, it will make it worse, because you’ll keep telling yourself to hold on for the money while your mental health exponentially deteriorates.

The job being interesting does though.

Re: Gitlab to lay off 7% of staff

#490

Post by amw-zero »

softwaredoug wrote: post #63

Listened to a great podcast about layoffs yesterday ( https://hbr.org/podcast/2023/02/why-many-companies-get-layof... ) The takeaway is that layoffs are extremely trust destroying for employees NOT laid off, and in the end not clear they're a financial net positive. Both with direct and indirect costs (lack of engagement from employees, etc).

There's not much of a choice if your company doesn't make money. Not paying employee paychecks also affects their engagement.
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