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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

#51

Post by mrheosuper »

geodel wrote: post #18
JKCalhoun wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still waiting for the Apple shoe to drop. Has Apple just not been as expansionist as these other companies? Or is it still coming?

They just didn't hire a lot like other companies. No cloud or AI bandwagon with tons of hiring and then later finding no work recently hired folks. Also work conditions were more traditional and stiff compared to pure software play companies so lot of people weren't falling over each other to get job at Apple. Also Apple is good at lot of outsourced work for long time compared to many other companies. So they don't t…

maybe that's why their AI/Assistant suck

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#52

Post by lmm »

eadmund wrote: post #36
lmm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions can't (always) make an unprofitable company profitable, but they can prevent fake layoffs that aren't actually warranted by the company's economic condition, like the kind the article is talking about.

> Unions can't (always) make an unprofitable company profitable Indeed, I think their major trick (in America, anyway) is to make a profitable company unprofitable. Much like the bad forms of private equity from above, they bleed a business dry from below.

Like every other stakeholder, workers and their representatives have their own interests, and sometimes those are in tension with other stakeholders. But while it's very easy for workers and management to end up blaming each other in the aftermath of a failed company, in my experience the failure is usually for more fundamental reasons. When the business is sustainable and growing, the pie is growing for everyone and the conflicts are manageable, and when it's shrinking you're probably doomed anyway. But then I tend to feel the same about most cases of private equity.

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#53

Post by ThrowawayB7 »

Arainach wrote: post #41
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…

Meanwhile, outside of the Redmond bubble, people keep hitting bugs in MS products that never would have gotten past the STEs and SDETs back in the day. Microsoft was forced to build its QA discipline in the '90s and early '00s because they were being torn to shreds by the press and public for the legendary bugginess of their products. Now we're seeing that bugginess creep back in thanks to Nadella.

Whenever it comes up among my co-workers as a Microsoft product falls on its face yet again, most recently MS Project Online screwing up something as simple as completion percentages during a meeting, I just sigh and quip "Maybe Microsoft ought to consider hiring a QA department."

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#54

Post by drewcoo »

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 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.

OSS? You mean copyleft? Who does that? Who would use that?

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#55

Post by Arainach »

monkaiju wrote: post #48
Arainach wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

They are absolutely not, and at this point anyone claiming as much is being malicious.

Yes, Biden could have done better on railroads, but his administration:

* Made millions more workers eligible for overtime pay

* Installed union leaders on the NLRB (contrast to Republicans who fired members, defunded efforts, and gave access to NRLB data to Musk/Palantir/etc.)

* Those new NLRB members issued the Cemex decision making it harder for companies to suppress union voting

* Issued any number of rules in favor of workers i.e. https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/olms/olms20230727

* Raised the contractor minimum wage

* Increased funding for the NLRB

* Ensured that companies couldn't avoid penalties by forming smaller companies - a process the Trump NLRB created to make it harder to penalize companies unionbusting

This is only a few things. There is a world of difference.

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#56

Post by geodel »

> For decades, Microsoft operated under an unspoken agreement with its employees—what I call “the pact.” The deal was simple: We’ll pay you 20-50% below market rate, but in exchange, you get stability, reasonable work-life balance, and most importantly, no layoffs.

This seems more of employee's made up rule rather than Microsoft's. I worked in a company in early 2000s' and old timer's told me similar rule "that here pay is less but little work and lifetime job guarantee". It was of course bullshit made up rule. As economy changed not only did they tighten the screws but also had many layoffs since then.

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#57

Post by geodel »

mrheosuper wrote: post #51
geodel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just didn't hire a lot like other companies. No cloud or AI bandwagon with tons of hiring and then later finding no work recently hired folks. Also work conditions were more traditional and stiff compared to pure software play companies so lot of people weren't falling over each other to get job at Apple. Also Apple is good at lot of outsourced work for long time compared to many other companies. So they don't t…

maybe that's why their AI/Assistant suck

LOL. Could be. But why then Xcode sucks. Surely there is no shortage of Xcode engineers there.

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#58

Post by geodel »

steveBK123 wrote: post #10
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?

I think everyone should dissuade themselves of the concept that such a thing as a "nice" company really truly exists. I've worked at close to 10 companies in my career both public and private. Some of the companies I've worked the big "family" culture and "our people are our greatest asset" company principles were the ones to do the deepest and swiftest cuts. Meanwhile their supposedly comparatively ruthless shark in…

> big happy family companies long enough to develop far too much company-specific rather than industry specific expertise, just in time to get laid off at 50.

I think this is a great point. Lately this is number one thing I feel concerned about. Though paradoxically they are coming from different direction as pushing buzzword driven development too fast in process making stable products unstable, calling them out of date. And then getting rid of products along the people who worked on them as dead weight.

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#59

Post by aitchnyu »

wenc wrote: post #21

Most financial advisors tell you to keep a rainy day fund with a 3-6 month runway. Given what's been happening in the tech industry and the economy at large, I now keep a 1-year emergency fund in a money-market fund at 4% (Fidelity SPAXX). I'm probably losing out on some growth (SP500 grew 11% over the past year, despite the massive drop in April 2025), but at least I have liquidity in case I get laid off. That's the…

Umm, my search engine says US inflation was 4.7 percent in 2021, 8 in 2022, 4.12 in 2023, 2.9 in 2024, 2.4 this year. Will you choose this in the 4+ percent years too?

Re: The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management

#60

Post by [deleted] »

cheschire wrote: post #47
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?

[deleted]
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