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Layoffs Don't Work

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Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#461

Post by bobthepanda »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #274
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…

Some people are good coders but can’t do it with an adversarial person watching. I’m often one of them. Might as well put a suitcase with $200k and a copper clock ticking away on the table next to them.

As someone who does these types of interviews on both ends, something like this is why I like to start with an outrageously simple question to break the ice.

Surprisingly, I have an 80% fail rate on the first question usually, which is just “find the second largest number in an array of numbers” for a 5 YOE role.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#462

Post by carlob »

saghm wrote: post #208
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 think there are two reasons: choosing to change jobs on your own gives you ability to pick a time when it's minimally disruptive to yourself and your actual family, and then the pretend "family" vibe you cite is pushed by the employer in the first place. Companies insising on a game of make-believe where the relationship between employer and employee isn't transactional makes it hard not to be bothered by the hypoc…

> I go out of my way to tip much larger than 20% when I use Uber because I'd rather risk getting ripped off than a driver not getting paid a fair wage for the work they do for me, even if it's at my own expense

Honest question, as a European who doesn't fully understand tipping culture: don't you think that this might be perpetuating a culture of exploitation? Wouldn't you rather spend your money on taxis that at least have some regulations if you are afraid the drivers are getting the wrong end of the deal?

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#463

Post by eastbound »

DarkContinent wrote: post #448
eastbound wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, a recruiter I know will ask a tech candidate "what is 20% of 20,000?" A significant percentage cannot answer the question. Some even cry. It's shocking. During our interview, we ask candidates to design a history system. The key is to realize that our database is only 8Gb, and storing a year of updates is only 160Gb, so $2pm in AWS. Once there, a simple DB table suits, no need to set up Amazon S3. So w…

Does your interview process require knowing cloud costs off the top of your head? Because that's hard to track tbh

What the… no.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#464

Post by nine_k »

al_borland wrote: post #422
nine_k wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen people leaving great jobs for a 10% raise. It's always something else: a much bigger benefit, or a significant downside of the current job, which are not widely publicized. Instead, I've seen people going to a lower -paying position for a more interesting job, a chance to learn new hot thing hands-on, a different set of responsibilities, etc.

I worked with a guy who left for more money, found out the grass wasn’t greener, and came crawling back. Then did it again. For some reason they hired him back a second time. When he quit the 3rd time I think that was the final bridge burned. I asked him about it and he said money was his singular metric for choosing a job, he was always looking, and would never stop.

I once left for a 50% raise, and once for a large chunk of equity in a promising startup (and being able to do early-stage formative work). But 10%?..

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#465

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

silisili wrote: post #180
marto1 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But everyone knows that's not what killed them. Another addition I'd like to add here is more often then not wrong people get booted while the "dead weight" tends to stick around and becomes even deader due to a motivation fall from the layoff. So maybe it doesn't kill, but for sure exacerbates an already bad situation.

Unfortunately, optimizing for not getting yourself laid off is not the same as optimizing for max productivity. In many ways, they're quite opposite.

Indeed. Like everyone from Lake Wobegon, I think that I am effective at my job. One of the most productive things I can do is to strangle bad ideas in the crib. This is not a popular role. Killing someone's pet initiative can make enemies. Yet, it can save countless weeks/months/years on doomed-to-fail efforts.

Working to not be laid off usually means just keeping your head down and going with the flow.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#466

Post by al_borland »

jagraff wrote: post #433
al_borland wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been at my company working in tech for 19 years and I hate the pushing of job hopping as a norm. Job hoppers have no skin in the game. They don’t need support what they build, they don’t get to see where it fell short… they really can’t learn from their experiences and mistakes. What they do isn’t in the best interest of the company, it’s just enough (an MVP if you will) to add to the resume so they can leverage…

I think the solution for this would be for companies to proactively raise wages in order to keep up with the market.

Yes, but it also takes some level of patience on the part of the employee.

Corporate bureaucracies often move slow, and they also want to see you can do the job first. I’m seeing most younger people don’t seem to have patience for this.

They also grossly overestimate their knowledge and ability. I’ve seen a significant number of people talk like they mastered a job after 1 year, then they stared asking me how they could get on my team doing what I do. I did the job they were doing for 10+ years. The reason they think it’s easy is because I defined the processes of how to do it all, wrote all the documents on how to do it, made a training program they went through, and worked with other teams to remove a lot of the toil. I then started building tools to make it easier for anyone off the street to do a lot of the work, and do it at scale. Thats why I have the job I have; it wasn’t given to me, I created it out of a desire to make the team better after realizing we could only go so far if I just worked faster. They didn’t see any of that.

For those that seemed interested, I’d give them the tools they needed to help, to see if they were the type to do this kind of stuff. I’d provide feedback, answer questions, or do anything else I could to help them. Out of the dozen or so who asked, only 1 person has done it to a limited degree. Thats why companies don’t just offer it up quickly and easily. A lot of people talk, but not many back it up.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#467

Post by dv_dt »

Nextgrid wrote: post #163
dv_dt wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What you're describing isn't out of control, all businesses have income and expenses, good management is watching both sides and building the organization that connects the two in the middle.

Sudden drastic moves if the business is delivering profits seems like the out-of-control action to take. If the business salary structure is off, or if you need to a different skill mix there are ways to shift that in a profitable business without sudden layoffs damaging the very organization that delivers your current profits.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#468

Post by hommelix »

steveBK123 wrote: post #29
roenxi wrote: post #17

> Research has consistently shown he was right about layoffs: They’re damaging to companies... The research is probably misleading. The damage was done to companies when the over-hired people who couldn't add enough value to justify keeping them employed. The layoffs are just when the damage is recognised. It is like borrowing a huge amount of money, using 90% of it it to buy prawns and leaving them out to rot for a…

This would be more true of management did not play BS with the numbers constantly. I worked at a firm that for 2-3 years straight would report great Q1,Q2,Q3 numbers.. tell employees it's looking like a good year. And then Q4 report a total wipeout loss that negated the quarterly earnings and swung the company to flat or a loss. Whoops, sorry, no raises, cutting bonuses.. and need to do some layoffs. Behavior like th…

Similarly when goals are linked to earnings and the company reports adjusted earnings... So changing the earnings by disregarding some expenses or some sales out of the calculation. The one in charge of this adjustment can play to allow or dismiss bonus for the year.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#469

Post by giantg2 »

tocs3 wrote: post #432
giantg2 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I make the same adjusted for inflation that I did when I got my last/only promotion 10 years ago. I have grey hair, a disability, and a family that relies on the health insurance. Switching or being laid off is a risky proposition for me. It sounds like all your examples are young, childless people (who else could take a month off to go vacationing?). Life is much harder for some of us.

Not passing any judgements on any life choices here, but occasional months off sounds like a good thing. I would not necessarily need to go anywhere to enjoy (make use of) the time. The notion of getting a month off with pay sounds good.

That sounds good, so long as there is similar employment at the end of it. As a sabbatical it sounds great. As a layoff, the uncertainty sounds crushing. It could take months to find a new position, especially with the disadvantages I have, I would likely need to start looking immediately and wouldn't be able to enjoy it.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#470

Post by geoka9 »

al_borland wrote: post #431
jjav wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I know a lot of people who can tweak code that already exists. However, if they are sitting in front of an empty text editor and given a goal, they don’t know how to break the problem down and build a solution with the tools the language gives them. In a large environment, someone may rarely need to start from nothing, so the interview format throws them. That said, I think being able to break down a problem to solve…

There's another extreme, too: people who can code up an app in a matter of days, but can never learn to navigate and successfully maintain a legacy code base (even their own!).
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