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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?

#141

Post by taude »

furyofantares wrote: post #137
taude wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think an elevated salary at a FAANG implies over-qualified, though. I phone-screened someone from a FAANG, and they knew very little about non-proprietary technologies that we used on a day-to-day. Any of the big-branded commercial apps, they weren't familiar with, and I can hire someone for a lot less with the required working knowledge AND know that they won't be resentful about it. I think it's going to ta…

> they knew very little about non-proprietary technologies that we used on a day-to-day Day-to-day tools are things that really takes no time to learn on the job imo. They take more time to get up to speed from scratch but when dropped into an environment using them I expect experienced folks to get up to speed very quickly. If they resent not having the awesome dev tools though, like you mention, that's another thin…

I think they resent the fact that they'll make 175K/year for senior level work.

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

#142

Post by gamblor956 »

catmanjan wrote: post #43
nubela wrote: post #18

We actually tracked every laid off individual from Google to understand the story behind the layoffs. Here's the summary: - 747 out of the 2,762 laid-off Googlers have since updated their profiles to indicate a change of employment status in the last 4 months since November 2022. - Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. - 1/3 of these ex-Googlers joined startups. See the full blog post here: https://nubela…

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

Ford is probably more of a tech company these days than Google is.

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

#143

Post by kreig »

Teever wrote: post #113
gumby wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. There’s a very good chance that their new jobs are similar to their former jobs. Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Every company of any size needs programming, statistics, and such. Conversely many companies swept under the “tech” term don’t develop any technology at all. It’s so bad that actual technology development i…

Can you give some examples of companies that are commonly called 'tech' companies that you don't brief develop any tech at all?

Nearshoring companies that hires developers to be assigned to external clients, just acting as brokers.

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

#145

Post by gumby »

commandlinefan wrote: post #107
gumby wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. There’s a very good chance that their new jobs are similar to their former jobs. Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Every company of any size needs programming, statistics, and such. Conversely many companies swept under the “tech” term don’t develop any technology at all. It’s so bad that actual technology development i…

> There’s a very good chance that their new jobs The linked blog post reads like the other 43.3% don't seem to have found any new jobs at all (if I'm reading it right). ("There could of course still be many that have found new jobs, which they might not yet update their profiles - a common practice on LinkedIn").

Zero of my friends laid off from google are even looking for a new job.

My wife was always asking me to retire, but after a year or so she’d say “it would be good for you to have a job”. Then repeat. Retiring isn’t that fun when you’re in your 30s.

So I suspect a bunch of them will be back in the job market eventually.

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

#146

Post by quelltext »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #118
Teever wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give some examples of companies that are commonly called 'tech' companies that you don't brief develop any tech at all?

Stripe. They are a payment processor and work in Finance. What significant contributions to tech have they produced? I'm not being snarky, I'm just not familiar with any off the top of my head like I know React came from FB/Meta, Google & Amazon produce all sorts of cloud computing stuff, Apple produces lots of libraries/frameworks (most likely for their own hardware/ecosystem), Bootstrap came out of Twitter, etc.

Providing an API abstracting over the complexity of payment processing is the technology.

Google's search engine is technology but you would probably say "isn't that just a researching documents"?

A bit weird how you only deem companies technological if they have released popular OSS or Apple because they produce libraries/frameworks they use internally. Pretty sure all software companies use internal libraries.

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

#148

Post by quesera »

stevenzzzzzzz wrote: post #133
nubela wrote: post #18

We actually tracked every laid off individual from Google to understand the story behind the layoffs. Here's the summary: - 747 out of the 2,762 laid-off Googlers have since updated their profiles to indicate a change of employment status in the last 4 months since November 2022. - Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. - 1/3 of these ex-Googlers joined startups. See the full blog post here: https://nubela…

If you want a more comprehensive list, here's a list of all the titles that were laid off in california (the only state with google warn filings that publicizes titles in their warn records): https://www.warntracker.com/?company=Google

Three identical comments is two too many.

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

#150

Post by wonder_er »

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, customer support, customer success, and inside sales at a B2B SaaS company.

Modestly obsessed with mobility networks. (like... roads, streets, bike paths, sidewalks, and the vehicles and people that occupy that space)

Working on going independent here in Denver, acting as a 'broker' between businesses and their staff/customers to convert single-occupancy-vehicle-users to scooters, to increase the functional number of parking spaces in a given parking lot by 10% or more.

Just started recently, partially inspired by spending a few weeks in Bali. (Being a laid-off tech worker has its upsides).

If I can get traction around this business idea, I'll move sideways into guerilla action road network improvements, to make the junctions around the businesses I work with more habitable and safe for scooters, pedestrians, and cars.

Soooo I'm trying to make my job something like "one who improves the functioning of road networks, sponsored by the direct beneficiaries of those improvements."

With a little success, I'll be able to start hiring people to help. Maybe I'll find a few other tech people to help. There's plenty of room for software developers to make meaningful contributions to these projects, but only after spending a lot of time not behind a laptop.

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