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Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

economist.com

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Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#111

Post by sokoloff »

hgsgm wrote: post #80
em500 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Moving down” can be more difficult than it looks. Anecdotally, employers can be reluctant to hire “overqualified” people (indicated by a high previous salary), because they believe these people will jump ship at the earliest higher paying opportunity elsewhere.

New employer has no reason to know previous pay.

If you were a Senior SWE at Google for 5 years, how do you imagine that a new employer won't realize that you were making a lot more than the $150K/yr they're proposing to stretch their budget to offer you?

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#112

Post by stcroixx »

DrBazza wrote: post #19
freeone3000 wrote: post #5

Answer: "Working somewhere else mostly, but some started their own company."

And probably leading to the next wave of innovation and/or unicorns. https://www.wired.com/story/tech-layoffs-are-feeding-a-new-s...

I wouldn't bet on it. Innovation takes hard work, sacrifice, low pay, etc. - exactly the opposite of what one does in big tech. They might try out of hubris until they burn through that nest egg and retreat.

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#113

Post by Teever »

gumby wrote: post #100
nubela wrote: post #18

We actually tracked every laid off individual from Google to understand the story behind the layoffs. Here's the summary: - 747 out of the 2,762 laid-off Googlers have since updated their profiles to indicate a change of employment status in the last 4 months since November 2022. - Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. - 1/3 of these ex-Googlers joined startups. See the full blog post here: https://nubela…

> Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. There’s a very good chance that their new jobs are similar to their former jobs. Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Every company of any size needs programming, statistics, and such. Conversely many companies swept under the “tech” term don’t develop any technology at all. It’s so bad that actual technology development i…

Can you give some examples of companies that are commonly called 'tech' companies that you don't brief develop any tech at all?

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#114

Post by esjeon »

Eumenes wrote: post #33
Beaver117 wrote: post #13

I can't find another job even with a FAANG background. The market is brutal. Maybe my only choice is to start a startup.

The biggest reason I've seen FAANG candidates (mostly Google, FB, and Amazon) get rejected is too much experience with proprietary technology, esp. if they've been there a long time, like 5+ years. I've even spoke to some FAANG candidates who think their internal proprietary tech is widely known or commercial products.

Yup, this. I found many ex-Googlers who just don't know how to count up. In the past, "we don't know how to count that low" was a valid joke, but, these days, it seems like a lot of young engineers don't really understand how things work beneath their feet. Every level from 1 to 1k to 1m to 1b is a unique problem, but these kids only learnt how to float above the clouds.

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#115

Post by stcroixx »

jghn wrote: post #94
taude wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think an elevated salary at a FAANG implies over-qualified, though. I phone-screened someone from a FAANG, and they knew very little about non-proprietary technologies that we used on a day-to-day. Any of the big-branded commercial apps, they weren't familiar with, and I can hire someone for a lot less with the required working knowledge AND know that they won't be resentful about it. I think it's going to ta…

> and they knew very little about non-proprietary technologies that we used on a day-to-day. I had an eye opening experience several years ago. My group was partnering with a group at Google. Their developers were sharp, as one would expect. But were very lacking in what would otherwise be considered table stakes, the reason always wound back to they had a proprietary Google equivalent of X, so thus they weren't fami…

I'm running into this with increasing frequency, particularly people coming from Amazon. For example, they know nothing about something like Kafka because they've been using some Amazonified version of something similar instead. They of course we'll never be able to match what they used to make and it would be more risk than I want to take to have them use us as a stepping stone while they try to get back to that level.

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#116

Post by upon_drumhead »

taude wrote: post #92
Eumenes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest reason I've seen FAANG candidates (mostly Google, FB, and Amazon) get rejected is too much experience with proprietary technology, esp. if they've been there a long time, like 5+ years. I've even spoke to some FAANG candidates who think their internal proprietary tech is widely known or commercial products.

Yeup. I had a similar comment above. I tried phone screening someone, and they had no working knowledge of the commercial apps that we integrate with, the databases we use, etc. And I can hire literally for half the price someone with working knowlege AND know they won't be resentful about the job....

FWIW, I've been trying to make the jump from FAANG to a smaller, stable company for the past few years. I started off in the smaller companies and miss it terribly. I made a bunch of extra money in the FAANG space, but I'm unhappy. Resentful is the last thing I'd ever be, but the lack of working knowledge is a huge issue. I work weekends on building knowledge, but the lack of direct experience running something at scale means I'll never get the chance to make the jump back to the environment I want and thrive in. I honestly wish I never made the jump for the money in the first place.

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#117

Post by 6510 »

mfbx9da4 wrote: post #30
nubela wrote: post #18

We actually tracked every laid off individual from Google to understand the story behind the layoffs. Here's the summary: - 747 out of the 2,762 laid-off Googlers have since updated their profiles to indicate a change of employment status in the last 4 months since November 2022. - Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. - 1/3 of these ex-Googlers joined startups. See the full blog post here: https://nubela…

> We then used ChatGPT to clean up and categorize all 2-thousand and more roles into 9 main categories. Finally we did a quick manual comb-through to correct any discrepancy. Yet another example of how times are changing!

ah the GPT combover, the future is here

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#118

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

Teever wrote: post #113
gumby wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. There’s a very good chance that their new jobs are similar to their former jobs. Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Every company of any size needs programming, statistics, and such. Conversely many companies swept under the “tech” term don’t develop any technology at all. It’s so bad that actual technology development i…

Can you give some examples of companies that are commonly called 'tech' companies that you don't brief develop any tech at all?

Stripe. They are a payment processor and work in Finance. What significant contributions to tech have they produced? I'm not being snarky, I'm just not familiar with any off the top of my head like I know React came from FB/Meta, Google & Amazon produce all sorts of cloud computing stuff, Apple produces lots of libraries/frameworks (most likely for their own hardware/ecosystem), Bootstrap came out of Twitter, etc.

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#119

Post by lesuorac »

Beaver117 wrote: post #99
thaufeki wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could also be why you can't find a job. You may be too expensive, and they're looking for engineers in the sweet spot of cheap/can keep the machine running.

It's funny because for 10 years people were saying "get this big company on your resume and you can just walk into any job!" Clearly not the case anymore

I mean severance was basically a year's wage. I doubt any of them are in a rush to be re-hired.

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#120

Post by shagie »

Teever wrote: post #113
gumby wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. There’s a very good chance that their new jobs are similar to their former jobs. Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Every company of any size needs programming, statistics, and such. Conversely many companies swept under the “tech” term don’t develop any technology at all. It’s so bad that actual technology development i…

Can you give some examples of companies that are commonly called 'tech' companies that you don't brief develop any tech at all?

SaaS companies that are linking one business function to another where the entirety of the product is some software running on the cloud.

This isn't saying that they don't do development, but rather that they're not breaking new ground in tech. They aren't working on any cutting edge problems or developing frameworks to enable development at scale.

I worked at a company that did some logistics. There was an app for phones, some servers, and some software that did routing, provided ETAs to customers, and produced some reports.

I would lump it in the broad umbrella of "tech" but it isn't a company that's building the next big thing (or even small thing) that will change the world.

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