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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?

#441

Post by fsociety »

inconceivable wrote: post #203
jghn wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FANG like companies also do a lot of things different then most other, As a hiring manager, this is a factor that weighs heavily in my mental math. My experience with ex-BigTech engineers has been that they tend towards wanting to make everything to match their BigTech experience. But they often don't have the pragmatism to understand that X is a good pattern at BigTech because *of the size of BigTech*. Have had wa…

i got into an argument with a bigtech employee (outside of work, in a social setting) that senior engineers should spend 25% of their time mentoring junior hires. he literally could not understand that a small company can't afford to do this. not only that, he also could not understand that small companies doesn't even make junior hires. there's nobody to mentor! and i would guess this guy has like a top 1% iq, whate…

If you can’t afford ~25% of your week educating junior hires, then you shouldn’t have junior hires.

It is a sin of the industry to not train new folks, and I would argue that many “senior engineers” do not know how to mentor juniors because they don’t see it as a priority.

I was heavily mentored during my time in small businesses with limited resources and profit. I hope others get that experience too.

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

#442

Post by matt-attack »

paulddraper wrote: post #285
jjav wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Indeed. Nearly every so-called "tech" company is not actually in the business of selling technology products, so they aren't really tech companies. Of course they create technology (sometimes very nice ones) internally in support of their actual business, but tech isn't the business the company board cares about. Netflix is a movie pro…

Google and Facebook are Ad Tech. I can sort of see your point with Netflix moving into content creation, but only sort of.

Wrong. Google and Facebook would be Ad Tech companies if they sold the ad tech. Instead they use the ad tech to sell ads. So I think it’s more accurate to call them ad companies.

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

#443

Post by wonder_er »

fxtentacle wrote: post #438
wonder_er wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah! I wonder how many other people have made the same mistake. There's really not a great word for this class of vehicle. I have been tempted to use the word 'moped', but got sternly corrected by the staff at sportique scooters when I was last there. I think I might keep using the word moped though, motor scooter doesn't quite do it, and scooter is too confusing. Or maybe I could say 'gas scooter' or '125cc scooter'…

In Asia, everyone calls them Vespa, no matter which brand.

Boom. Perfect. This is the word I needed. Calling myself a vespa broker'. Thanks!

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

#444

Post by wonder_er »

grogenaut wrote: post #427
wonder_er wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a bunch of reasons. No single one is the end all 'super conclusive', but in aggregate it makes a good case for scooters. Tldr the capacity, speed, range, and ease of adding gas (vs charging at a station) of a scooter is an order of magnitude better than an ebike. Easier to park, too. You don't have to lock them up like you do a bike. Have you ever ridden a scooter? It's much closer to a motorcycle than a bik…

Do they make good E-scooters yet?

'good' really means 'good enough', and that's situation and context dependent.

I demand a lot from my 170cc scooter, so it couldn't be replaced with an electric one, but some of my trips could be done on an electric scooter.

I have a friend who really likes her electric scooter, but she uses it less and for shorter trips than I use mine for.

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

#446

Post by nasmorn »

ericmcer wrote: post #322
wonder_er wrote: post #150

Laid-off tech worker here. (backend engineer, ruby/rails/javascript). 5 years of experience. I'm working on not ever going back into tech. I've changed careers a number of times in my 34 years of life, and am doing it again. I'm only a mediocre software developer, have always had strong people/business skills, informed by my pre-software experience of commercial construction, teaching/training at a climbing gym, cust…

A career change is really attractive but adjusting salary expectations is brutal. Skilled jobs I was interested in and assumed were making $30+ an hour I looked into and found they are closer to $18-20/hr. After tech gigs making 250k+ with equity it is a pretty brutal downgrade. My interest is in starting an all electric gardening company, electric tools have caught up to gas ones, they are almost silent and have 0 e…

I am also one that doesn’t really enjoy total specialization but every single thing I can come up with, looks like a hobby compared to being a developer financially.

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

#447

Post by catmanjan »

JohnFen wrote: post #176
catmanjan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a tech company? Is ford a tech company? Is Goldman Sacha a tech company?

According to PR and marketing departments the world over, every company is a tech company.

Exactly! What most people seem to mean by tech is was it founded in the 90s and does their home page use react

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

#448

Post by elzbardico »

closeparen wrote: post #272
elzbardico wrote: post #41

One thing that is very important to realize after being laid-off from a very big company during a recession is that you need to adjust your salary expectations for the new reality. And the other thing is that you should have been prepared for this a long, long time ago. Economic cycles are a thing, it is in all history books, there's no excuse for not being aware of them. I have always been very very conservative wit…

>You really don't need a Peloton bike and other conspicuous consumption signs. It would be quite hard for frivolous spending to become a problem on levels.fyi money. What you really have to watch out for is things like buying a house or starting a family. Not only are they much larger in absolute terms, but you must sustain them at the same quantity every month for decades. Nothing is easy or pleasant to cut back on,…

I used this just as a symbol. The problem is that expenses have the nasty habit to compound over time and get bigger and bigger. If you don't watch yourself, you'll end up doing things like buying an over-sized home, then a boat, an expensive german car, a very expensive private school for the kids, the family expectation of expensive trips now and then.

And when things get tight, all those "small-ticket" itens and their maintainance come back to bit you if you have insanely high mortage payments like lots of my colleagues.

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

#449

Post by elzbardico »

bradlys wrote: post #200
elzbardico wrote: post #41

One thing that is very important to realize after being laid-off from a very big company during a recession is that you need to adjust your salary expectations for the new reality. And the other thing is that you should have been prepared for this a long, long time ago. Economic cycles are a thing, it is in all history books, there's no excuse for not being aware of them. I have always been very very conservative wit…

> You really don't need a Peloton bike and other conspicuous consumption signs. This kind of just general bashing on tech people is so conceited. You're acting like a $2,000 stationary bike is really worth fussing over when you're making $400-500k/yr. Very few people at these incomes in tech are living month to month. They're overall saving a fuckload even if they own a 911.

It is not bashing man. As I explained elsewhere this is just a symbol. I am not that young anymore, and I've seen this play have been played a few times now: boom and bust, boom and bust, and to make things worse, now it looks like our wheater supercharged by global warming: faster and more violent swings.

You'd get surprised how fast people can spend money while looking financially healthy. More so when they live in places with insanely high Cost of Living, like London, NYC or the Bay Area.

The Peloton is just a symbol of overconsumption, maybe unfair, maybe inexact, but an useful symbol anyway. It usually comes along with the multi-million mortgage, a lot of the wealth in papers that can get marked to zero overnight. Then you have all the expenses that come with an expensive lifestyle: lavish trips, expensive restaurants, maybe a boat, maybe a couple of very expensive to maintain german cars. And did I mention the multi-million 30 years mortgage that could also become underwater?

I've been there in the past, done that, get some sleepless night thinking not about the next month, but about the next year, and they year after that one. By sheer luck I've avoided the worse, but I got the lesson that you need to respect your money, as much as you have of it, it is not infinite. Buying something just because it looks inexpensive compared to your income is not a good idea.

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

#450

Post by lazyasciiart »

wonder_er wrote: post #402
lazyasciiart wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why scooters? Why not also aim for electric bikes, for instance?

I've got a bunch of reasons. No single one is the end all 'super conclusive', but in aggregate it makes a good case for scooters. Tldr the capacity, speed, range, and ease of adding gas (vs charging at a station) of a scooter is an order of magnitude better than an ebike. Easier to park, too. You don't have to lock them up like you do a bike. Have you ever ridden a scooter? It's much closer to a motorcycle than a bik…

No, because I've never had a license.
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