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Layoffs Don't Work

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Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#161

Post by clusterhacks »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #150

Real talk here, and I'm sorry for being "that guy" Why do tech workers get so wrapped around the axle of layoffs when most people are in a chronic state of tech job hopping? I know multiple people who have worked their entire career thus far without ever staying at a place for more than 3 or 4 years. Some no more than two. Tech job culture is practically a mono culture with "hop jobs" being a hallmark. From an employ…

Maybe that perception that people chronically job hop is not true? I would welcome a data source that shows chronic job hopping is the norm.

Anecdotally speaking, I spent 6+ish years at my first "old tech" company. My org in this (very large) company was constantly simmering with resource actions (mostly small scale layoffs). There was lots of negative energy there. I left to take a programming/data analytics gig in a large, privately held financial company that had never had a layoff. This was unfortunately timed, 2 years later the financial crisis of 2008 kicked off and I (and my entire team) were all laid off. I have been with my current employer for approaching two decades and several of my peers have been on our team for that much time.

I have had a SINGLE manager in that time window. I can't even name all the managers I had in my first job due to near-constant re-orgs and layoffs.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#162

Post by encom »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #71
pclmulqdq wrote: post #41

I remember hearing a take on layoffs that I think is pretty true: When you fire the bottom 10%, you lose another 10% who are from the top performers. The destruction of psychological safety for everyone at the company is irreparable, and you start to bleed your most productive talent, too.

I've seen this happen. I worked at an extremely efficient company that had a great product. We got acquired, and within months, were part of the acquiring company's yearly mandatory layoffs. They fired a bunch of (apparently random) people to meet the quota. This absolutely destroyed us. Morale was just gone. Within six months, about a quarter of our employees, mainly top performers who could easily find other jobs,…

>yearly mandatory layoffs

That sounds grotesque. Who would choose to work at a company with that sort of bullshit dangling over your head?

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#163

Post by Nextgrid »

dv_dt wrote: post #87
dustingetz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

software development costs are out of control the whole industry is one big grift, there’s no accountability anywhere, 20% of the devs are doing 80% of the work, the business would instantly terminate the 80% for cause if they could only discern the difference, but they can’t, because the business side is also a big grift with the exact same problem all the way up to the founders recursively

The big tech companies paying the largest salaries are raking in billions in profits. How does this square with the view that software development costs are out of control? Layoffs today seem more like execs following management fads for easy visible actions and this data would suggest that the actions are actually detrimental to company profits. Juice the numbers for a quarter but add another long term drag to the c…

Just because a company can be overall profitable doesn't mean costs aren't out of control. If you make enough profits, you can literally feed money into a shredder and still come out ahead if you earn profits faster than your shredder can eat them.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#164

Post by tmoertel »

sejje wrote: post #127
eschneider wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people will often see people who they don't perceive as low performers getting lumped in with 'low performers' and laid off. At that point, you start looking for management that seem to know what they're doing.

But only top 10% start looking? This all sounds like a hand wavy hypothetical.

Everybody starts looking, but it’s the top performers who get disproportionately more offers and leave.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#165

Post by austin-cheney »

dartos wrote: post #16
dustingetz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

software development costs are out of control the whole industry is one big grift, there’s no accountability anywhere, 20% of the devs are doing 80% of the work, the business would instantly terminate the 80% for cause if they could only discern the difference, but they can’t, because the business side is also a big grift with the exact same problem all the way up to the founders recursively

Got news for you. It’s not the devs who are bloating development costs. It’s the layers of management making hour long meetings to discuss button placement. It’s the hours of retros, design meetings, and skip-levels designed to remove any personal investment or sense of ownership from everything. Since so few individuals are trusted with real decision making power, you need a lot more people to achieve some kind of c…

It’s the devs too. Do you really need an army of developers to build a web app or put text onto screen? No, a small team can easily handle that much faster and at higher quality without all the framework bullshit.

You also have to consider that developers are not sales people. They are a cost center.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#166

Post by markus_zhang »

jajko wrote: post #24
markus_zhang wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The twist is that when you layoff the 80% who supposedly only did the 20% part, you pretty much still have to hire the same amount of people to do that 20%.

But with lower rates, and with abysmal rampup period (or even afterwards). Don't blame managers, they just follow money, why else would they work those crappy jobs. Blame idiots who think short term bonuses should be massive instead of some long term performance and investment of oneself in company's success.

Then by the same principle, don't blame the devs, they are just drifting as most people would do.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#167

Post by lumost »

filoleg wrote: post #160
Workaccount2 wrote: post #150

Real talk here, and I'm sorry for being "that guy" Why do tech workers get so wrapped around the axle of layoffs when most people are in a chronic state of tech job hopping? I know multiple people who have worked their entire career thus far without ever staying at a place for more than 3 or 4 years. Some no more than two. Tech job culture is practically a mono culture with "hop jobs" being a hallmark. From an employ…

I cannot speak for layoffs in all industries ever, but I agree with your assessment of layoffs in big tech from personal experiences. I have way too many “lifer” friends in big tech who are deadly scared of layoffs and job hopping. They are also the ones who rarely got promoted and havent had a significant pay bump pretty much ever. On another hand, half my team at a big tech company got laid off back at the start of…

Big tech interviews tend to be daunting. Many long term employees lose the skill, and fear the impact of work interruption on their resume as well as their ability to get in again.

Anecdotally, the LC bar for many firms has risen to the point that passing requires at least one through of the question before. If you Time bound your practice per question to 20 minutes, this means that you can solve most LC problems at least once in around 8 weeks of 40 hour weeks. Or 6 weeks at 60 hours.

Not a pleasant way to spend two months - but not impractical. I'm unclear what employers are deriving from this exercise at this point.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#168

Post by Nextgrid »

dpkirchner wrote: post #140
billy99k wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it worked for Twitter. Lots of people screamed that Twitter would implode withing 6 months, after the massive cuts. There was some scrambling for a while, but I haven't noticed any issues. In fact, they've added tons of new features and Grok AI (which is much better than competitors).

Last I heard Twitter is so desperate they've resorted to suing former customers who stopped buying poorly performing ad space. Edit: removed supposition

This has nothing to do with the tech side of things though? In fact the business was always on shaky grounds even before the acquisition.

From a tech perspective, the company was indeed massively bloated with tons of people clearly not contributing anything.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#169

Post by InsideOutSanta »

marto1 wrote: post #156
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this happen. I worked at an extremely efficient company that had a great product. We got acquired, and within months, were part of the acquiring company's yearly mandatory layoffs. They fired a bunch of (apparently random) people to meet the quota. This absolutely destroyed us. Morale was just gone. Within six months, about a quarter of our employees, mainly top performers who could easily find other jobs,…

> had a great product > We got acquired Can I just ask about the reason for this? Was it owners wanting off the ride?

Owners made half a billion and got high-ranking positions at the buyer.

Buyers bought it because they had a very specific problem that the product was designed to solve, and thought that it would be a competitive advantage to deny the solution to their competition. On paper, it was a good decision.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#170

Post by napierzaza »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #150

Real talk here, and I'm sorry for being "that guy" Why do tech workers get so wrapped around the axle of layoffs when most people are in a chronic state of tech job hopping? I know multiple people who have worked their entire career thus far without ever staying at a place for more than 3 or 4 years. Some no more than two. Tech job culture is practically a mono culture with "hop jobs" being a hallmark. From an employ…

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