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The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

danielsada.tech

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Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#41

Post by Arainach »

int_19h wrote: post #30

The notion that layoffs are something new at Microsoft is weird. I joined it in 2009 in the middle of a large layoff, and I've seen several more over the 15 years I've spent working there. E.g. almost 8k people were gone back in 2015. Nor is it something unique to them. As far as I know, the only large US tech company that didn't do layoffs in the past decade is NVIDIA (their last one was in 2008).

>almost 8k people were gone back in 2015

That wasn't a traditional layoff - it was a reimagining of the development process and the elimination of SDET which was overwhelmingly a good thing - I also joined in 2009, and SDET was an utter disaster. All the good SDETs got out of that job - either to SDE at Microsoft or to SDE at another company. Those that were left were largely a waste of money, and the entire culture of "this person writes the code, this person writes the tests" meant that a lot of devs got high recognition and rewards for writing untestable unmaintainable garbage that someone else had to try to cover.

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#42

Post by Arainach »

paxys wrote: post #40
Oggle wrote: post #6

Microsoft definitely does underpay the market significantly! Like 60% of what other companies of the same level pay, unless you're in the Copilot org. Maybe you'll get a little bit higher.

The majority of Microsoft employees are in Seattle/Redmond, which has no state taxes and a lower cost of living than the Bay Area, so it isn’t a straightforward comparison.

It's a straightforward comparison in the area. Below Principal/Staff, Microsoft's stock awards are a (very unfunny) joke and their comp is pretty meh.

I left in 2018. I was 63 (first level senior) and had offers from Google and Meta for a downlevel (L4) at a 40% increase in total comp. The gap has closed slightly in the last 7 years but not much at those levels.

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#43

Post by georgemcbay »

cactusfrog wrote: post #33
hackthemack wrote: post #24

I wish people were not so adverse to unions. The company will never be your friend. You will almost never have much leverage over what the company wants to do. The information you have will most likely be very asymmetrical to what the company has insight into, putting you at a disadvantage. Unions are imperfect. Unions will have its own inside politics. You will pay a union fee. I think humans are fundamentally flawe…

The amount of unioned workers keep decreasing because the firms with unioned workers fail or the work is outsourced. I think open source software is the best protection against abuses because workers can take the means of production elsewhere if a company becomes dysfunctional or greedy. The consolidation of patents in other engineering fields has killed the industry in the US.

I'm traditionally pro Open Source but I don't see how it helps much in this case, because whatever effort you put into Open Source software equally benefits the corporations you are fleeing from who can just take your work for free now.

And this is more true now than ever before since they can (so far legally, if not morally) also use LLMs to whitewash off GPL and other such licenses that would in the past have put practical limitations on their usage.

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#44

Post by dshacker »

ThrowawayB7 wrote: post #22

This overlooks the 2009 and 2014 layoffs and the notorious Mini-Microsoft blog, still up over 15 years later(!), where they were discussed. The notion of a "Microsoft Pact" is absolute baloney but, had there been one, it was broken back then, not anytime recent.

Right, but there is even an implicit pact, you get lower-than-market compensation but you get better benefits and long-term stability. At least that's the mental math you did when joining the company and comparing offers between employers.

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#45

Post by dshacker »

Arainach wrote: post #42
paxys wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of Microsoft employees are in Seattle/Redmond, which has no state taxes and a lower cost of living than the Bay Area, so it isn’t a straightforward comparison.

It's a straightforward comparison in the area. Below Principal/Staff, Microsoft's stock awards are a (very unfunny) joke and their comp is pretty meh. I left in 2018. I was 63 (first level senior) and had offers from Google and Meta for a downlevel (L4) at a 40% increase in total comp. The gap has closed slightly in the last 7 years but not much at those levels.

Same experience for me, I still remember at IC1 getting 7k stocks over 5 years as my "stock bonus" for the year. which meant getting 1 or 2 MSFT stock every 4 months :D

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#46

Post by dshacker »

ballmersucker wrote: post #15
dshacker wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I was afraid of generalizing throughout the company. I think compared to other companies it seems to have a benefit of being more "nice". Maybe it's mostly targeted towards tech roles at that?

You thought MS was "nice"? WTF were you smoking?

Comparatively to other companies, (amazon meta) I feel like Microsoft is "nicer"

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#47

Post by cheschire »

xivzgrev wrote: post #17

As a manager I’m going thru performance management myself. It’s a hard experience. What I learned is: you need to hold a high bar, because people can do anything to keep their job, and often not what you want them to do What you want is someone who is open to feedback, understands it, and takes effective action. Outside of that, there’s a whole gamut of people. Some get defensive. Some are politely open to feedback b…

I would much rather work for a place where the culture allows people to be humans, and 1x and 10x people can coexist under the same management.

But hey I am judging off of basically one sentence you wrote so what do I really know about your situation?

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#48

Post by monkaiju »

Arainach wrote: post #39
cactusfrog wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of unioned workers keep decreasing because the firms with unioned workers fail or the work is outsourced. I think open source software is the best protection against abuses because workers can take the means of production elsewhere if a company becomes dysfunctional or greedy. The consolidation of patents in other engineering fields has killed the industry in the US.

>because the firms with unioned workers fail or the work is outsourced Sorry, you misspelled "decades of Republicans disassembling labor protections and enacting garbage like right to work laws, corporations hiring thugs like the Pinkertons to break up and discourage them, and conservative media spewing lies to discourage membership".

You're totally correct, but it wasn't _just_ Republicans. The Democrats are incredibly anti-labor. Even Biden, who was marketed as "most pro-labor president since FDR" forced the railroad workers back to work.

Both parties are so in capital's pocket that, at least on labor issues, they are essentially the same.

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#50

Post by armada651 »

georgemcbay wrote: post #43
cactusfrog wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of unioned workers keep decreasing because the firms with unioned workers fail or the work is outsourced. I think open source software is the best protection against abuses because workers can take the means of production elsewhere if a company becomes dysfunctional or greedy. The consolidation of patents in other engineering fields has killed the industry in the US.

I'm traditionally pro Open Source but I don't see how it helps much in this case, because whatever effort you put into Open Source software equally benefits the corporations you are fleeing from who can just take your work for free now. And this is more true now than ever before since they can (so far legally, if not morally) also use LLMs to whitewash off GPL and other such licenses that would in the past have put p…

If you've built up lots of experience working on a closed-source in-house code base that expertise will be tied to the company you're working for and once you're fired all that knowledge becomes useless to you.

If you've built up expertise in an open-source projects that lots of other companies use that knowledge is a valuable asset on your resume.

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