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Layoffs Don't Work

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Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#331

Post by jjav »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #200
WalterBright wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm unclear what employers are deriving from this exercise at this point It filters out the complete frauds. Yes, there are people who know all the right things to say in a job interview, but cannot code at all. If you hire one of them, it takes a bit to find out they cannot code, and a bit longer to fire them, so you're out $$$$ paying their salaries for nothing. For example, a recruiter I know will ask a tech can…

I have done probably 500 to 1000 tech screens for big tech companies (as the interviewer) and this is completely true. I have interviewed many people employed in tech as programmers for their entire career and they can't code. I don't meen leetcode, I mean they get confused trying to write brute force substring search. The nested for loop seems to be too complex for them to keep in their head all at once. I have had…

> I have interviewed many people employed in tech as programmers for their entire career and they can't code.

Think about this contradictory statement for a while. Can it actually be true? Or is there something else going on?

If the interviewee has nothing but sub-1yr stints on their resume, perpetually getting fired before vesting at any company, then yes, it's very possible they actually can't code and just fake it at every interview.

But everyone else... if they have spent years at tech companies writing production code then obviously they know how to code. They might be great or maybe mediocre, but guaranteed they at least know how to code.

So, if your interviewing technique is concluding something that is obviously impossible, then start by considering how to improve the interview technique.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#332

Post by supriyo-biswas »

no_wizard wrote: post #185
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…

The tech industry also doesn’t reward loyalty, even at big tech. There’s a reason for the low tenure at most firms and it’s primarily due to the lack of rewarding experience and depth of field knowledge at most companies. When you have to get a new job just to get a salary increase that keeps up with inflation you are going to see a lot of job hopping when the skills of the workforce are generally in demand. How ofte…

> The tech industry also doesn’t reward loyalty

Anecdotally, I’ve heard of many cases of “up or out” in FAANGs, which in other terms is a negative preference for loyalty.

(This, in fact, is one of the reasons people working in those companies perpetually seem to be practicing interview questions and Leetcode every day.)

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#333

Post by theoreticalmal »

warkdarrior wrote: post #329
giantg2 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, but I'm not sure this deserves appreciation either. We already have plenty of life in this world. Perhaps so much so that the human life is negatively impacting other life, including other humans. I'd be much more appreciative of people making life better than making more of it.

[flagged]

Goodness what a miserable outlook

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#334

Post by deviantbit »

This is a terrible opinion piece. Layoffs do work. Cutting hours does not work. I am always amazed how few people understand how a business operates. They think its a community organized event where there is unlimited revenue.

There are a few basic accounting principles employees need to understand. It all revolves around Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity. If you think otherwise, take a "Cost Accounting" course. This is a pure numbers game. Everyone wants to wrap a psycho analysis into something that has ZERO relevancy.

If a company is bleeding revenue, it cannot sustain the overhead of employees. They have to go. Cutting hours does nothing for those on a salary, and those that are hourly, benefit costs are far more expensive than their wage. If a company has stagnant growth, that means leadership has made bad decisions, and things have to change.

Employees feelings don't matter on a Balance Sheet, Income Statement and Cash Flow Statement. There is not a "Employee's Feelings" column on the ledger. Everyone can be replaced. No one is special, unless you're a majority shareholder.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#335

Post by theoreticalmal »

munificent wrote: post #177
filoleg wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A few months of skiing sounds nice, but not as nice as the profound pleasure of working on a team of people I've know and cared about for over a decade. You're going to spend half your waking life at work. For me, that's too much time to not want to do so at a place where I have real relationships with my coworkers.

You need to find better ski spots!

Just joking :) I firmly respect your opinion on the matter, and understand different people value different things in life.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#336

Post by mock-possum »

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 mean in all fairness, I move around because I’m looking for a place to stay - if I’m not enjoying myself at my job, why would I stick around? And conversely, when I find a spot I like, why job hop?

And besides, the last time I was laid off, it was from a place I’d been at nearly 5 years, a place that did feel almost like family - that’s why I stayed as long as I did.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#337

Post by acdha »

ezekiel68 wrote: post #313
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have done probably 500 to 1000 tech screens for big tech companies (as the interviewer) and this is completely true. I have interviewed many people employed in tech as programmers for their entire career and they can't code. I don't meen leetcode, I mean they get confused trying to write brute force substring search. The nested for loop seems to be too complex for them to keep in their head all at once. I have had…

The other replies to this comment aren't wrong but I feel they fail to take into account that (especially with startups): having someone watch you code during an interview is one of the the least stressful experiences the person will face with the company - once the job begins. Companies can't take on the risk of dealing with a bunch of passive-aggressive bullcrap once the real code reviews begin after the hire. Most…

> Imagine a person with a pilot's license refusing to fly tandem for an airline interview.

That’s not a great comparison since a pilot has already passed substantially harder tests to get that license and a flight is exactly what the job is. If you have a candidate with a pilot’s license you can assume at least a baseline level of capability which you can’t assume for a software engineer. That has pros and cons but it definitely means interviewing is a noisier process.

The other problem, however, is deeper: the job of flying a plane is exactly what’s tested to get a pilot’s license but what many places do for developer interviews is wildly unlike the actual job so it’s more like interviewing pilots based on trivia questions about the number of rivets on a B-52 and how well they can solve 3-D puzzles, and then being surprised when there isn’t much correlation with real world performance. For example, only at the most toxic companies will the interview be one of the least stressful parts because the rest of the job is a team effort. What makes the interview challenges stressful is doing it without your normal tools while someone else is looking for reasons to fail you, but in a normal job your coworkers are trying to help you succeed because even if you’re not friends you are all better off when your company succeeds. At a startup, trying to ding someone for trivia challenges is like hitting the iceberg to prove that the navigator made a mistake.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#338

Post by mattmaroon »

slappyham wrote: post #305
mattmaroon wrote: post #59

"After the early-2000s dotcom bust, Bain researchers found that stock prices for S&P 500 companies that had no layoffs or laid off less than 3% of their workforce increased an average of 9% in the next year." Do non-science journalists just not know about correlation vs causation? Does it really not occur to them that maybe the companies that didn't do layoffs were healthier and that's why they overperformed? Wouldn'…

[flagged]

Because it's a very common logical fallacy. You're also describing sample bias, someone who wholeheartedly agrees with the article probably has little to discuss.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#339

Post by danny_codes »

sejje wrote: post #49
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.

Why do you lose 10% of your top performers?

Anecdotally layoffs leave a bad taste. I worked at a smallish company that laid of 20% going into covid and within 2 years most of the best talent churned out.

It gutted moral, basically.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#340

Post by ryandrake »

deviantbit wrote: post #334

This is a terrible opinion piece. Layoffs do work. Cutting hours does not work. I am always amazed how few people understand how a business operates. They think its a community organized event where there is unlimited revenue. There are a few basic accounting principles employees need to understand. It all revolves around Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity. If you think otherwise, take a "Cost Accounting" course.…

I mean, everything you said is true, but only because we have deliberately set up the system as such. Shareholder Primacy is a choice we have made as a society. It's not some natural law or something carved by god into stone tablets. It's not hard to imagine alternatives, but obviously the shareholding class is going to work hard to ensure that only their preferred rules have traction. Whether or not alternatives are workable given human nature is another thread altogether.
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