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Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

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Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#711

Post by missedthecue »

EricDeb wrote: post #605
missedthecue wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, I truly do not believe there is anything that could happen that would convince HN that LLMs reduce demand for engineering labor hours.

He's actually agreeing it reduces the need for engineers to produce the same level of output as now. He's making the argument that companies would then desire more output to capitalize on additional ideas/projects. I could see it going either way, but likely demand will fall.

I just don't think there is infinity opportunity for positive EV projects for every single company.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#712

Post by toraway »

claytonjy wrote: post #224
tacker2000 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair marketing vibing content pages is different from managers vibing code that powers a trading app for example.

Yeah this sounds pretty reasonable really, like instead of using a CMS directly they’re having Claude file PRs to make the same changes. As someone who likes static sites and change control, it actually sounds like an improvement.

Despite my own personal preference for static sites, marketing using a CMS under their own control to make content updates seems vastly more reasonable than vibe coding open ended PRs as a codebase they don't understand gradually grows in complexity over time.

They could even use one of many headless CMSs combined with a static generator. Claude Code in the hands of non-technical users deploying to prod regularly seems like one of the worst possible ways to do it (except for the "cool" value telling people about it).

At my company the internal devs don't even have access to wherever the company site is hosted, it's a WordPress CMS and marketing can make updates safely with a couple clicks and zero day-to-day development oversight required. IT just helps keep the box updated but otherwise it's entirely their own thing.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#713

Post by dzonga »

siren2026 wrote: post #561
kelnos wrote: post #515

> Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. [...] Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams. Oof. So not only are they giving their remaining managers more reports, but those managers will be expected to do lots of other, non-management work. Sure, nothing can go wrong…

Or maybe we should go back to what it was before Google and big $$$ tech decided that if you were a "manager" you shouldn't contribute technically. Being a manager now means a bunch of busy work talking to other managers and weekly 1:1s. There is a ton that has been written about the managerial class. Producing nothing, but for sure making themselves look self-important. Before that the manager was essentially the be…

I have worked in big tech, venture funded scale up - series D etc and yeah early stage pre-seed.

the places - where pure managers just existed i.e manager, senior engineering manager, director, vp etc - just added unnecessary overhead.

places that flourished had a manager who was also an IC - who reported directly to the CTO

which means I was 1 layer away from the CTO

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#714

Post by sofixa »

keiferski wrote: post #690

It has always annoyed me that companies can basically fire people for whatever reason they want, but more specifically that they can lie about that reason. It almost makes we wish there were legal requirements for giving proof backing up the reason. It doesn’t need to be an actually good or noble one, but just in the sense of actually being accurate information being put into the world. I imagine this could be sold a…

> It has always annoyed me that companies can basically fire people for whatever reason they want, but more specifically that they can lie about that reason.

Laughs in labour protections.

In many countries (the vast majority of developed countries, and plenty of developing ones), you can't lay off employees for any reason, and reasons can be scrutinised and sued over.

E.g. in France, I can be fired for performance after I've been written up and given an opportunity to improve, or fired immediately if I steal money or harass someone at work. But my employer cannot invent themselves a reason. If the reason they want to let me go is because they're going through economic headwinds, or no longer need my position, they have to document that, give me the opportunity to find another job in the company if possible, and if they're lying (e.g. immediately replacement with someone younger and cheaper), I can sue with almost guaranteed success.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#715

Post by t43562 »

parliament32 wrote: post #662
siren2026 wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe we should go back to what it was before Google and big $$$ tech decided that if you were a "manager" you shouldn't contribute technically. Being a manager now means a bunch of busy work talking to other managers and weekly 1:1s. There is a ton that has been written about the managerial class. Producing nothing, but for sure making themselves look self-important. Before that the manager was essentially the be…

> We don't need weekly 1:1s to check on feelings Hard agree. One-on-ones are one of the silliest fads in our industry lately. Why would you wait until a weekly scheduled meeting to bring something up? Your manager's job is to be available to you when you need something, not just once a week. And if they want to know how you're feeling.. they should ask, putting it on an agenda feels very disingenuous. Me and my direc…

I used to have many ad-hoc chats with my team every day so that 1-1 time was redundant and we just spent it debugging things or discussing some problem.

My own boss seemed to see the time as an opportunity to apply pressure so of course I utterly hated them and wanted them to end ASAP. I didn't want it to be like that for my team. I thought I should be a source of help.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#716

Post by anthonypasq »

keiferski wrote: post #701
abi wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What benefit would it truly provide? Companies would simply say they need to cut costs to maximize shareholder value, which is no different than what happened here.

Well, generally speaking I think it’s a better world if corporations are forced to not lie to people. Presumably investors and those shorting the company would benefit from more accurate information about a company. So the market as a whole would be healthier and less prone to inflationary claims. I also don’t think that excuse would really hold up under scrutiny: “we fired 14% of our workforce to maximize shareholde…

the company is hemorrhaging money, and consistently missing earnings. idk what else you need to know brother

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#717

Post by borroka »

Despite the proclamations of torment, suffering, and unwillingness to do it, but, they say, "such is life and this is what needs to be done", I often found in CEOs announcing big layoffs a quite visible undercurrent of joyful power-tripness.

Also, it is clear at this point that thought tech leaders decide, probably over group chats mere mortals are not allowed in, on messages to deliver for a few days, urbi et orbi: introspection is overrated; the leaders-followers dichotomy; now, the disdain for "people managers," as if they were imposed by the Galactic Empire instead of being people whom their organization hired for years.

And, like, what sort of message is, to be sent when announcing lay-offs: "from now on, teams will have not 14 but 15 ICs (whatever numbers), the new IC will be the manager, who will continue to be a manager but also will do some IC work"?.

It is high-school all over again.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#718

Post by hilariously »

philipallstar wrote: post #584
dataengineer56 wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 30 min 1-1 per week per report would be a full working day. Never mind that if you're an IC then you'll also be expected to support other people using your code, as well as analysing and approving decisions for your reports.

It might be better to have 45 minutes every 2 weeks with reports, which is 1.5 days every 2 weeks. Then probably another 2 days every two weeks for sideways and upwards meetings, 2 days for ad hoc planning and design work, and 4 days for coding and reviewing. Hope they're well paid!

And that assumes nothing unplanned happens and there's nothing that expands in any domain. It's just a way to burn out everyone and create a culture of toxic positivity because you are gonna get fired otherwise.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#719

Post by t43562 »

dataengineer56 wrote: post #577
kelnos wrote: post #515

> Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. [...] Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams. Oof. So not only are they giving their remaining managers more reports, but those managers will be expected to do lots of other, non-management work. Sure, nothing can go wrong…

A 30 min 1-1 per week per report would be a full working day. Never mind that if you're an IC then you'll also be expected to support other people using your code, as well as analysing and approving decisions for your reports.

30 minutes of chat is one thing but one might expect work to come out of it such as things you have to do for or about that person.

IMO it's just efficient to use any excuse to say "what's up, how did the house move go?" or whatever and make sure that you do that with everyone and that you behave in such a way that they don't fear or hate to have a 5 minute chat and know you are ready to listen if they want to say more. i.e. to take an actual interest in each person.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#720

Post by borroka »

dzonga wrote: post #713
siren2026 wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe we should go back to what it was before Google and big $$$ tech decided that if you were a "manager" you shouldn't contribute technically. Being a manager now means a bunch of busy work talking to other managers and weekly 1:1s. There is a ton that has been written about the managerial class. Producing nothing, but for sure making themselves look self-important. Before that the manager was essentially the be…

I have worked in big tech, venture funded scale up - series D etc and yeah early stage pre-seed. the places - where pure managers just existed i.e manager, senior engineering manager, director, vp etc - just added unnecessary overhead. places that flourished had a manager who was also an IC - who reported directly to the CTO which means I was 1 layer away from the CTO

The confounding factor here is the size of the company. You are saying, more than "I like managers who contribute technically (whatever that means)", that you like working for small companies.

It's as if people are saying they want a direct democracy in which every issue is voted on directly by the participants, with just one layer between the people and the "prime minister." Good luck with that when the group size exceeds 50 people, and one realizes that people don't want to vote on every issue affecting a larger society or organization.

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