Yelp lays off 1000, furloughs 1100 • Hacker News Board

Re: Yelp lays off 1000, furloughs 1100

#181

Post by crimsonalucard » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

dguaraglia wrote: post #127

crimsonalucard wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically I would say a lot of engineers are easy to fire. You only need a certain amount of engineers to do maintenance.

Engineers are easy to fire, but incredibly hard (and expensive) to hire, especially if you become known as the company that'll fire people immediately in a crisis. There's a fine line between saving money now and spending it later, and I'm sure Yelp - just like every other company out there - is trying to figure out where does that line lay.

I don't think engineers have this as a specific trait. Every worker in any occupation has the attitude you describe above.

The thing that truly influences "hard to hire" is supply and demand. With the influx of bootcamps Software engineering supply has increased and with COVID-19 decreasing demand Engineers may no longer have the luxury of picking and choosing like they used to.

I'm an engineer btw. Just viewing the situation from a realistic lens.

Re: Yelp lays off 1000, furloughs 1100

#182

Post by throwawaymsft » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

coffeemug wrote: post #168

deminature wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wondered this before joining a large tech company. As it turns out, a lot of engineering is done on experimentation to optimize the product. Only a small portion of users might see the experiment, and many don't succeed. An example might be complying with food and alcohol law in a single region, which you would never see unless you lived there. Another example might be a complete experimentally gated refactor that…

That's a really charitable explanation and I think it explains some percentage of labor, but not nearly all of it (not even the majority of it, IMO). Yes, there is more going on behind the scenes in every company than you'd ever know about. But I think the majority of labor follows the pareto principle-- there are maybe 100 employees in every company of, say, 1000 people that do nearly all the work, and 900 employees…

Check the incentives. For corporate managers, your salary is generally proportional to the number of people you manage. Who cares if your 1000-person org doesn't accomplish anything, you're a big shot now.

On a sports team, coaches are rewarded for championships. There is no room for waste, and underperforming people get cut.

Re: Yelp lays off 1000, furloughs 1100

#183

Post by deminature » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 7:15 PM UTC

_fs wrote: post #170

madamelic wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Another aspect is your changes often have to be approved by a lot of people, which is not the case on small projects. So you need more engineers because you hired more middle managers? That's a little absurd in my opinion but I am likely wrong in this assumption. It just seems like the reaction to "We have lots of approvals" should be figuring out how to reduce the amount of approvals needed, not hiring more enginee…

It appears that Middle managers are downvoting you in force.

Middle managers have nothing to do with the approvals I was talking about. It's entirely eng-driven.

Re: Yelp lays off 1000, furloughs 1100

#184

Post by pishpash » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 7:20 PM UTC

coffeemug wrote: post #168

deminature wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wondered this before joining a large tech company. As it turns out, a lot of engineering is done on experimentation to optimize the product. Only a small portion of users might see the experiment, and many don't succeed. An example might be complying with food and alcohol law in a single region, which you would never see unless you lived there. Another example might be a complete experimentally gated refactor that…

That's a really charitable explanation and I think it explains some percentage of labor, but not nearly all of it (not even the majority of it, IMO). Yes, there is more going on behind the scenes in every company than you'd ever know about. But I think the majority of labor follows the pareto principle-- there are maybe 100 employees in every company of, say, 1000 people that do nearly all the work, and 900 employees…

Just like the stock market having bubbles, businesses don't get efficient except during a downturn.

Re: Yelp lays off 1000, furloughs 1100

#185

Post by throwaway55554 » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

starpilot wrote: post #119

throwaway55554 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even 150 blows my mind. Years ago I worked for one of the top 10 EHR software makers (at the time - maybe even now, I haven't looked) and we had 1/3 the number of engineers on that system.

The problem is edge cases take a shitload of work via pareto principle. And if your company is small, edge cases can be ignored because they affect 1-2 users. When you're serving millions, those are thousands of users. You might be the only entity in that industry at that scale and have to custom build everything.

Edge cases? Medical software is loaded with them.

Re: Yelp lays off 1000, furloughs 1100

#186

Post by sevencolors » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 7:25 PM UTC

pgsbathhouse2 wrote: post #174

rchaud wrote: post #159

While job losses will pile further misery on the economy, I hope that means there are now fewer ad sales people trying to shake down local businesses so that they offer Yelp protection money to keep their ratings positive. Companies like this always start with a noble purpose, before the pressure to monetize causes them to ruin what was once a valuable service.

This is not a thing. No one at Yelp does this. There is literally zero evidence that Yelp does this.

Ok, just keep pretending it isn't happening. But the owners of thousands of small cafes & restaurants would bend your ear for hours with bullshit they have to deal with.

Re: Yelp lays off 1000, furloughs 1100

#187

Post by aianus » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

dguaraglia wrote: post #127

crimsonalucard wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically I would say a lot of engineers are easy to fire. You only need a certain amount of engineers to do maintenance.

Engineers are easy to fire, but incredibly hard (and expensive) to hire, especially if you become known as the company that'll fire people immediately in a crisis. There's a fine line between saving money now and spending it later, and I'm sure Yelp - just like every other company out there - is trying to figure out where does that line lay.

Were engineers incredibly hard and expensive to hire immediately after the dotcom bust or the 2008 financial crisis?

Re: Yelp lays off 1000, furloughs 1100

#188

Post by spankalee » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

coffeemug wrote: post #168

deminature wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wondered this before joining a large tech company. As it turns out, a lot of engineering is done on experimentation to optimize the product. Only a small portion of users might see the experiment, and many don't succeed. An example might be complying with food and alcohol law in a single region, which you would never see unless you lived there. Another example might be a complete experimentally gated refactor that…

That's a really charitable explanation and I think it explains some percentage of labor, but not nearly all of it (not even the majority of it, IMO). Yes, there is more going on behind the scenes in every company than you'd ever know about. But I think the majority of labor follows the pareto principle-- there are maybe 100 employees in every company of, say, 1000 people that do nearly all the work, and 900 employees…

I think you're missing the key part of GP:

> These projects might be pointless on a small app, but in a large business might be worth millions to the company.

With enough traffic and revenue, you'll get a positive return on hiring a bunch of engineers to optimize things that wouldn't be worth it for smaller sites. With enough engineers you'll get a positive return on hiring engineers to make engineering more efficient.

It's only natural in that case that as traffic and revenue drops, the ROI calculation changes and it suddenly becomes better to lay those people off.

And that's just engineering. I can imagine that in this downturn the sales department just isn't generating new revenue. What brick and mortar business is going to advertise right now? It only makes sense to lay off as much of the sales teams as possible. You can hire them back later.

Re: Yelp lays off 1000, furloughs 1100

#189

Post by jb775 » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #4

Off topic: Can anyone explain why the dow jones is going up? The dow was LOWER Jan 1st 2019. I feel we are worse off than Jan 1st 2019.

A few possible reasons:

1.) The gov has shown they aren't willing to let the market tank.

2.) Many businesses are actually thriving right now via online orders. This means every part of their associated supply chains are thriving as well.

3.) This is a temporary revenue setback but will make it socially acceptable to layoff employees by the thousands...which will trim payrolls without losing an equivalent amount of production.

4.) Non-retired people wouldn't dare touch their 401k before they are 59 1/2, which are primarily comprised of stocks.

5.) The market is predicting a surge of activity once this is all over.

6.) This situation shook out any major bubbles that were forming (e.g. stock buybacks), and made the market more anti-fragile.

7.) People now see the value of having more goods on hand in their homes, which will probably mean increased initial spending when this is over.

Re: Yelp lays off 1000, furloughs 1100

#190

Post by Ascetik » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

Can't say this is really a bad thing, Yelp has had blackmail and predatory business practices a long time and should be shutdown on that alone. It's amazing to me they haven't been sued into oblivion yet.