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Layoffs Don't Work

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Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#521

Post by lumost »

eastbound wrote: post #392
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…

> 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…

Out of curiosity what do you find wrong in the s3 solution? This is a data volume that rdbms can manage, but are you looking specifically for the engineer to say something like “I’ll maintain a Write Ahead Log in the database”

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#522

Post by Aeolun »

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…

Dude, I have no idea what a stack is because I never studied computer science. It’s never held me back except during interviews with people that expected me to understand computer science fundamentals.

If someone asks me what the time complexity of something or the other (I literally had to go look up the name), I completely freeze up.

Whether you know the term doesn’t matter when you understand the basic concept that for inside for == bad.

Anyhow, it seems to be working out pretty well for me, so while I’m also annoyed by incompetent people the idea that it’s due to lacking CS fundamentals sounds bizarre to me.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#523

Post by int_19h »

clusterhacks wrote: post #161
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…

I worked at Microsoft 2009-2024 and I've seen it a lot. It's rather telling when your own manager tells you that if you want fast promos and raises, the best way to do so is to switch companies every few years. And I've had more than one manager say that. I know many people who did several rounds of Microsoft -> Google -> Amazon -> Microsoft or the like.

That said, I don't think one can blame the devs for it, since it is the companies themselves that have created the environment where the above holds true. I never understood why - intuitively, it doesn't make sense for the company to underpay its devs to the point where they leave for a competitor, and then come back and get rehired at a much higher salary anyway. But it is what it is, and the workforce has caught on.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#524

Post by [deleted] »

steveBK123 wrote: post #92
_benj wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hits home. I wish there was a way to gauge “retrospect” before actually suffering from it. I’m now usually quite weary of “we’ve had to get yet another loan of 60 mil, after 6 years in business because we don’t know how to make a profitable business” also known as a series C or whatever.

These are great because often the founder managed to take money out at one round of funding or another and is insulated from downside.

[deleted]

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#525

Post by gjm11 »

Does anyone here understand the "The consistency of layoffs" graphic?

The best guess I have is that the number of layoffs in each year is indicated by some sort of measure of the "overall height" of that slice of the image, so e.g. somewhere around 2020 the number is very large. But it's not at all clear, and it's especially not clear which if any of the various small-scale ups and downs we are supposed to take seriously if this is how it works.

It's a good candidate for the worst statistical graphic I've seen this year. (The opening-door one earlier in the article is another.)

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#526

Post by darkwater »

throwaway151883 wrote: post #325
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…

> check if text has mismatched parens I always try to give everyone I’ve interviewed the benefit of the doubt. You never know what’s going on in their lives, and even if they fail a trivial question it doesn’t mean they are faking the ability to code. I joined Facebook back in 2018. Didn’t study at all for the interview and passed somehow. Then I probably conducted 200-300 interviews in my time there, so I became qui…

So you were rejected at a Metà interview after you previously worked at Facebook for 4 years? Or were you interviewing for some other FAANG?

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#527

Post by palata »

deviantbit wrote: post #376
yodsanklai wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a company is bleeding revenue Not what happened with some of the recent layoffs. Some big tech companies generate huge revenues, laid off 5-10% of people (sometimes with false pretext of performance), and do keep hiring at the same time or soon after. This happens not to reduce cost but to stress out remaining employees.

[flagged]

Are you saying that you have never heard of a single team having layoffs even though the team was profitable?

I have. Multiple times.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#528

Post by giantg2 »

int_19h wrote: post #517
giantg2 wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. The subliminal message I'm getting from my current managers is that I should just be a good little disabled person and work as a Walmart greeter. It's turning into harassment at this point. Just all sorts of BS. Like telling me they are doing so much for me, when my ADA accommodation is weekly 1-on-1s with the manager and my tech lead. Is that really a lot? There are people without disabilities getting weekly 1-…

A weekly or bi-weekly 1:1 with your manager has been the standard arrangement in my last two jobs.

It's supposed to be bi-weekly here. But according to HR "that's not policy, just recommended". I had about 5-6 months were I only got 2 1-on-1s, and the feedback then was good. They completely dropped the ball and blamed it on the disabled guy.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#529

Post by int_19h »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #228
no_wizard wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Big tech employees have been abandoning companies the second they can get higher TC for decades, and as soon as the companies start firing a very small fraction (in a lot of cases people who were coasting or incompetent) its a problem of morality? You can really see what people are made of when they face adversity. Good luck.

Big tech employees have been doing that because they see new hires (who have themselves switched from another big tech company!) get a lot more comp than their meager raise. Don't blame the workers from reacting to the signals that company is sending through its own deliberate actions.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#530

Post by int_19h »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #413
deviantbit wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is not what happened in recent layoffs where I am familiar with the company. Perhaps you would like to make the argument that in theory, lay-offs can be done that way.

I've seen several mass layoffs at Microsoft over the years, and not a single one could be described like GP did.
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