Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LinkedIn laying off nearly 700, mostly from core engineering teams

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 294 posts

Re: LinkedIn laying off nearly 700, mostly from core engineering teams

#81

Post by slg »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #45
coldpie wrote: post #4

Good news for those 700: because we don't have tech worker unions, they are able to individually bargain the terms of their layoff! ...right?

Don’t you know? We 10x engineers are so special that we are waving off offer after offer and that will never end. Not only will that never end, but luckily I’m so perfect that I’ll never experience a disability or need any accommodation that I can’t just code or build myself. I mean even then, certainly you had a good enough exit at your first company (like anyone good) that you could basically retire whenever. I mea…

I know this is said in jest, but I just want to remind people there is no such thing as being too valuable to be a member of a union. LeBron James is in a union. Tom Cruise is literally striking right now as part of the SAG-AFTRA union strike. Unless John Carmack happens to be reading this, I guarantee you are not close to being as valuable an engineer as LeBron is a basketball player or Cruise is an actor.

Re: LinkedIn laying off nearly 700, mostly from core engineering teams

#82

Post by oh_sigh »

deviantbit wrote: post #61
coldpie wrote: post #4

Good news for those 700: because we don't have tech worker unions, they are able to individually bargain the terms of their layoff! ...right?

A union would have done nothing other than accelerate the process. We need laws that if a job is off-shored the company is penalized heavily, where it makes it painful and unbearable.

A union would have also changed the distribution of who was laid off. Basically, fresh grads who have very little seniority would be the ones kicked to the curb. Whereas MS had the option to lay off exactly who they wanted...maybe it was certain teams, maybe they laid off a lot of people whose compensation no longer matched with their contributions.

Not MS, but I was at a big tech co that recently did layoffs, and a lot of the Super Senior Staff Distinguished Wizard SWEs, who I always wondered "What exactly do you do?" got laid off.

Re: LinkedIn laying off nearly 700, mostly from core engineering teams

#83

Post by paxys »

bilekas wrote: post #65
neovive wrote: post #57

> “As we continue to execute on our FY24 plan, we need to also evolve how we work and what we prioritize so we can deliver on the key initiatives we’ve identified that will have an outsized impact in achieving our business goals,” LinkedIn executives Mohak Shroff and Tomer Cohen wrote in the memo. Is this standard business communication lingo for layoffs?

This is one of the worst examples of 'biz-speak' I've ever come across adding insult to injury for those 700 workers being let go.

Such memos aren't written for people who were fired but the people who are left. Basically "you're lucky to be here, now get to work on reaching your goals."

Re: LinkedIn laying off nearly 700, mostly from core engineering teams

#84

Post by doctorwho42 »

deviantbit wrote: post #61
coldpie wrote: post #4

Good news for those 700: because we don't have tech worker unions, they are able to individually bargain the terms of their layoff! ...right?

A union would have done nothing other than accelerate the process. We need laws that if a job is off-shored the company is penalized heavily, where it makes it painful and unbearable.

What free market? We haven't had a free market in decades.

Re: LinkedIn laying off nearly 700, mostly from core engineering teams

#86

Post by HumblyTossed »

neovive wrote: post #57

> “As we continue to execute on our FY24 plan, we need to also evolve how we work and what we prioritize so we can deliver on the key initiatives we’ve identified that will have an outsized impact in achieving our business goals,” LinkedIn executives Mohak Shroff and Tomer Cohen wrote in the memo. Is this standard business communication lingo for layoffs?

Translation: We suck at running and leading a company so we are going to prioritize showing investors we can still return dollars to them this quarter by letting go of some peons.

Re: LinkedIn laying off nearly 700, mostly from core engineering teams

#87

Post by monero-xmr »

gabyar wrote: post #44
raybb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some tech worker unions (like at NYT) but not enough. A relevant book that recently came out but I have not read is You Deserve a Tech Union by Ethan Marcotte https://abookapart.com/products/you-deserve-a-tech-union

My first job was at a tech company with a union. Boeing. It was ridiculously bad. I've never worked with less talented people. One of my coworkers did nothing, at all, for 2 years. But with 17 years of experience, he couldn't be fired. I carried the team, but they couldn't pay me what I was worth or promote me. I left as soon as I could.

People love simple answers to complex problems. Unions are such an example. The core idea behind a union makes sense - it's legalised extortion. Unions have codified in the law the ability for everyone in the union to hold the owner of property at ransom until they meet the union's demands. The only counterweight is the threat of bankruptcy, which ruins everything for everyone, but because the ideology of labor is very anti-business, they don't really care about that anyway.

Very few intelligent, educated people are part of unions, so they have no idea how they actually work. As I am against extortion, I am against unions.

Re: LinkedIn laying off nearly 700, mostly from core engineering teams

#88

Post by creato »

passion__desire wrote: post #7
tannedNerd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like if US companies are proven to off shore jobs they should take a massive tax hit the same year. Like you are required to pay 5 years worth of the salary of the job you off shored into unemployment or retraining funds.

If there are global markets for products, they should be global markets for employment.

The global market for tech products isn’t that much lower friction than tech employment. India has a lot of tariffs. China has the great firewall and the “local partner” shakedown. US has export controls of many high tech products.

Re: LinkedIn laying off nearly 700, mostly from core engineering teams

#89

Post by ss1996 »

huytersd wrote: post #56
LewisVerstappen wrote: post #3

> LinkedIn is now ramping up hiring in India, according the person familiar. So, laying off people in the US and hiring in India?

Why wouldn’t they? It’s like 7-10x cheaper.

The difference is much lesser 7-10x in big tech (Google, Amazon, Msft, etc). Big tech's Indian offices pays about 1/3 to 1/4 of what they would earn in the company's USA office. Levels.fyi will corroborate this.

Yes, while the average software engineer in India might earn 7-10x less than in the US, this isn't the case within major tech companies.

Re: LinkedIn laying off nearly 700, mostly from core engineering teams

#90

Post by waynesonfire »

nojito wrote: post #69
deviantbit wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A union would have done nothing other than accelerate the process. We need laws that if a job is off-shored the company is penalized heavily, where it makes it painful and unbearable.

Why?

because these people are being replaced with off-shore hires from India and China.
Post reply on HN