7 ms·

This part at the end of the article is probably the real true nugget in here: > But implicit in that risk, Mr. Nayyar points out, is a lot of downside. Many ex

by sbarre 4y ago

This part at the end of the article is probably the real true nugget in here: > But implicit in that risk, Mr. Nayyar points out, is a lot of downside. Many executives thought, “but didn’t say out loud, that if demand disappeared or changed course – sometimes even slightly changed course – those people we brought on, it might not make sense to have them around any more. … You’re just a number on the page; whatever happens, happens.” I have no doubt that a lot of tech companies, including Canadian startups like Shopify, hired like mad during the pandemic boom knowing full-well that they would end up laying off a bunch of those new hires once things got "normal" again. A lesson to be learned for anyone taking a job in a fast-growing company is to really think about the value that your specific job brings to the company. What is your direct contribution to the bottom line? Work this math into whatever official comms you get from your employer when trying to think about what your actual job security looks like. That and be prepared for layoffs. Have a couple of months of runway put aside somewhere and don't touch it. Because I think these cycles of boom-then-bust for growth are only going to get more frequent.

ffggvv 4y ago
> A lesson to be learned for anyone taking a job in a fast-growing company is to really think about the value that your specific job brings to the company. Imo the issue usually is that interesting and value bringing work are usually not in alignment at these companies. most companies i’ve worked at, no one wanted to work on ads and found them boring even though they brought in all the revenue. everyone wanted to work on the experimental or shiny new thing which may not have demonstrated value yet. but not sure if it’s worth working on the boring thing just for job safety
- sbarre 4y ago
  You're absolutely right, and it's worth thinking this through even before you take a job, if you have that luxury.
valzam 4y ago
What I don't understand about this: What's the point of bringing on so many engineers with the expectation of firing many of them? It takes time to get productive and especially when you hire lots of engineers they will probably work on new projects. Spending a lot of money on an engineer and then firing them before they start to really produce value is very odd...
- boringg 4y ago
  I dont think they intended to have to lay off people. If everyone recalls during the core of the pandemic people really thought that this was the new normal. Im sure they thought that this was a full time step change in demand. I doubt they anticipated a recession (much like most companies). The executives at most companies aren't that smart on long term macros, much more reactionary to immediate needs
  - hw 4y ago
    I doubt anyone would do it differently if put in Tobi’s place. If you see a bump in demand and growth for your product, do you just wave it off and hope the existing team can handle the increase stress on infrastructure, product needs, customer support, sales, etc? Why not capitalize on it while you can, and if it doesnt pan out just reverse course and fire fast.
    - zht 4y ago
      I mean this is fine if you just abstract away those people being fired as resources without feelings, bills, families, or opportunity cost…
      - boringg 4y ago
        I mean alternatively they wouldn't have had those jobs and i think the team hired on hope of sustained growth. If we always hired on expectations of layoffs (which i believe were incredibly generous from news reports) your current staff would be be beyond burnt out. Damned if you do damned if you don't situation.
maxFlow 4y ago
Back in early 2021: > As the newest senior leader on Shopify’s engineering team, Polinsky will lead Shopify’s efforts to build its e-commerce infrastructure and will lead the company’s efforts to double its engineering team in 2021 by hiring 2,021 new technical staff. [0] > “Engineering hiring is probably the biggest limiter to Shopify’s growth,” Harley Finkelstein [President of Shopify] said in an interview after the results. The company had hoped to hire 2,021 new engineers this year and current conditions mean “obviously, it’s hard to do that,” he said, without disclosing the number that have been hired. A tight market for talent is a worry for many industries but none more so than technology. Universities are not producing enough new engineers and the entire sector is competing for graduates, Finkelstein said. [1] As of today they only have 10 open positions in the "Engineering & Development" department, the majority of which are for Staff/Tech Leads. [2] Perhaps it would behoove Shopify to put a bit more thought into their hiring strategy; rather than just wanting to inflate engineer numbers as a vanity metric via jingly campaigns (2021 on 2021). "Just a number on the page". [0] https://techcouver.com/2021/01/06/shopify-to-double-engineering-team/ https://techcouver.com/2021/01/06/shopify-to-double-engineer... [1] https://archive.ph/RMzlm https://archive.ph/RMzlm [2] https://www.shopify.com/careers/search?search%5Bkeywords%5D=&search%5Bteams%5D%5B%5D=engineering https://www.shopify.com/careers/search?search%5Bkeywords%5D=...
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
I recently began the process of interviewing for a position with a Vancouver HQ'd Canadian tech company (that a friend works at) while also interviewing for a remote US HQ'd startup. I terminated the process with the Canadian company when I accepted the offer for the startup. A couple weeks later the Canadian company announced a large number of layoffs, including for the kind of position I was considering. I just looked and they're now advertising for that position again, with a fresh new posting. Just two months after their layoffs. Dubious.
mabbo 4y ago
> Shopify, hired like mad during the pandemic boom knowing full-well that they would end up laying off a bunch of those new hires once things got "normal" again. You should read Tobi's post about what happened. That's not how it was. https://news.shopify.com/changes-to-shopifys-team# https://news.shopify.com/changes-to-shopifys-team# > Before the pandemic, ecommerce growth had been steady and predictable. Was this surge to be a temporary effect or a new normal? And so, given what we saw, we placed another bet: We bet that the channel mix - the share of dollars that travel through ecommerce rather than physical retail - would permanently leap ahead by 5 or even 10 years. > It’s now clear that bet didn’t pay off. > Ultimately, placing this bet was my call to make and I got this wrong. Shopify grew like mad, but it wasn't from vanity. If the bet had paid off, it would have meant a permanent step up in company value. Bias: I'm one of the last developers hired before the stock crashed.
- sbarre 4y ago
  > You should read Tobi's post about what happened. That's not how it was. I did read that back when it was posted. I hope you recognize PR when you see it? Sorry if it came across like I was saying that companies are being evil or bad or vain about how they're hiring. Quite the opposite, and more dangerously, I think companies see nothing wrong with the boom-then-bust approach to hiring, and that it's going to happen more. And so my point here is that employees need to re-think how they look at job security in high-growth companies, and assume that they might be getting hired as part of a "bet" and not as part of a long-term strategy where the company has allocated the money to keep you around, like a lot of people assume when they take a full-time job (vs. a contract). Plenty of larger tech companies that did layoffs, Shopify included, were never in any real financial trouble. They just made bets that didn't pay off, and so they corrected and moved on.
  - xal 4y ago
    I write my own posts, not PR. Don’t be so jaded.
    - skipants 4y ago
unity1001 4y ago
Its more likely that they calculated that the spike in ecommerce that was caused by people quarantineing in their houses would not last, but it would still remain higher than how it was. (And its likely that it did, when you adjust it to the economy). But nobody seems to have anticipated the Ukraine war and the sancitons hitting back the West itself, exacerbating inflation in the US and creating record inflation in Europe. That really kicked the balls of the tech industry. And judging from national currencies being used more in international trade now, its likely that the old environment with infinite cash and little to no inflation in the US will not return. Since all the dollars that are not being used by countries that are now trading in their own currencies seem to flow back to the US, causing inflation. Its likely that this may end the high cash influx, bloated stock share value economy and make the old format non-workable. But in the long run when the inflation and the prices settle, ecommerce should still be a profitable activity. Except that now companies would be valued on what actual revenue they are making, instead of the elusive and unpredictable potential value into the next decade which may or may not come. In short, less WeWorks, more companies with an actual business model that works immediately or in visible future.
jupp0r 4y ago
What you wrote doesn't make rational sense to me: 1. Why would Shopify willingly hire and train lots of people during the pandemic if they knew they'd let them go afterwards anyways? This makes no economic sense at all, they'd be better off to silently burn that money and not take the reputation hit. 2. You assume that layoff decisions take your individual job and situation into account. This is not the case in practice, especially so in quota driven mass layoffs.
- vgel 4y ago
  The argument isn't that they did evil stuff for no reason. The argument is they "bet" that growth would continue at pandemic levels, and hired to support that growth, with the plan that if the growth didn't continue and the new people weren't needed, they'd just lay them off. The opinion is that, if that was the plan (which Tobi's layoff post seems to confirm), that it's a crass way to operate. People uprooted their lives to work there. They quit old jobs, maybe moved cities or countries. Of course layoffs happen and companies make mistakes, but deliberately setting up a strategy with a high possibility of failure ("a bet") and then hiring people knowing that they'll be laid off if things outside their control don't go right in the near future--that's sort of crass. Obviously no exec was twirling their mustache and saying "find me Jim, we'll fire him first because I hate him". It was just a plan set up, seemingly, without regard for the outsized risk it placed on new employees relative to the possibility of the business itself failing. New employees that would disproportionately be affected by a layoff, by nature of being new employees.
b112 4y ago
That and be prepared for layoffs. Have a couple of months of runway put aside somewhere and don't touch it. This is really the only solution. Really, outside of very apparent issues with a company, no one has job security. It is an illusion. You must behave, financially, as if tomorrow is your last day at work. Because I think these cycles of boom-then-bust for growth are only going to get more frequent. People have been saying this for decades. If true, I think it is derived from a faster news cycle more than anything.

by sbarre 4y ago

ffggvv 4y ago

> A lesson to be learned for anyone taking a job in a fast-growing company is to really think about the value that your specific job brings to the company. Imo the issue usually is that interesting and value bringing work are usually not in alignment at these companies. most companies i’ve worked at, no one wanted to work on ads and found them boring even though they brought in all the revenue. everyone wanted to work on the experimental or shiny new thing which may not have demonstrated value yet. but not sure if it’s worth working on the boring thing just for job safety

sbarre 4y ago
You're absolutely right, and it's worth thinking this through even before you take a job, if you have that luxury.

valzam 4y ago

What I don't understand about this: What's the point of bringing on so many engineers with the expectation of firing many of them? It takes time to get productive and especially when you hire lots of engineers they will probably work on new projects. Spending a lot of money on an engineer and then firing them before they start to really produce value is very odd...

boringg 4y ago
I dont think they intended to have to lay off people. If everyone recalls during the core of the pandemic people really thought that this was the new normal. Im sure they thought that this was a full time step change in demand. I doubt they anticipated a recession (much like most companies). The executives at most companies aren't that smart on long term macros, much more reactionary to immediate needs
- hw 4y ago
  I doubt anyone would do it differently if put in Tobi’s place. If you see a bump in demand and growth for your product, do you just wave it off and hope the existing team can handle the increase stress on infrastructure, product needs, customer support, sales, etc? Why not capitalize on it while you can, and if it doesnt pan out just reverse course and fire fast.
  - zht 4y ago
    I mean this is fine if you just abstract away those people being fired as resources without feelings, bills, families, or opportunity cost…
    - boringg 4y ago
      I mean alternatively they wouldn't have had those jobs and i think the team hired on hope of sustained growth. If we always hired on expectations of layoffs (which i believe were incredibly generous from news reports) your current staff would be be beyond burnt out. Damned if you do damned if you don't situation.

maxFlow 4y ago

Back in early 2021: > As the newest senior leader on Shopify’s engineering team, Polinsky will lead Shopify’s efforts to build its e-commerce infrastructure and will lead the company’s efforts to double its engineering team in 2021 by hiring 2,021 new technical staff. [0] > “Engineering hiring is probably the biggest limiter to Shopify’s growth,” Harley Finkelstein [President of Shopify] said in an interview after the results. The company had hoped to hire 2,021 new engineers this year and current conditions mean “obviously, it’s hard to do that,” he said, without disclosing the number that have been hired. A tight market for talent is a worry for many industries but none more so than technology. Universities are not producing enough new engineers and the entire sector is competing for graduates, Finkelstein said. [1] As of today they only have 10 open positions in the "Engineering & Development" department, the majority of which are for Staff/Tech Leads. [2] Perhaps it would behoove Shopify to put a bit more thought into their hiring strategy; rather than just wanting to inflate engineer numbers as a vanity metric via jingly campaigns (2021 on 2021). "Just a number on the page". [0] https://techcouver.com/2021/01/06/shopify-to-double-engineering-team/ https://techcouver.com/2021/01/06/shopify-to-double-engineer... [1] https://archive.ph/RMzlm https://archive.ph/RMzlm [2] https://www.shopify.com/careers/search?search%5Bkeywords%5D=&search%5Bteams%5D%5B%5D=engineering https://www.shopify.com/careers/search?search%5Bkeywords%5D=...

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

I recently began the process of interviewing for a position with a Vancouver HQ'd Canadian tech company (that a friend works at) while also interviewing for a remote US HQ'd startup. I terminated the process with the Canadian company when I accepted the offer for the startup. A couple weeks later the Canadian company announced a large number of layoffs, including for the kind of position I was considering. I just looked and they're now advertising for that position again, with a fresh new posting. Just two months after their layoffs. Dubious.

mabbo 4y ago

> Shopify, hired like mad during the pandemic boom knowing full-well that they would end up laying off a bunch of those new hires once things got "normal" again. You should read Tobi's post about what happened. That's not how it was. https://news.shopify.com/changes-to-shopifys-team# https://news.shopify.com/changes-to-shopifys-team# > Before the pandemic, ecommerce growth had been steady and predictable. Was this surge to be a temporary effect or a new normal? And so, given what we saw, we placed another bet: We bet that the channel mix - the share of dollars that travel through ecommerce rather than physical retail - would permanently leap ahead by 5 or even 10 years. > It’s now clear that bet didn’t pay off. > Ultimately, placing this bet was my call to make and I got this wrong. Shopify grew like mad, but it wasn't from vanity. If the bet had paid off, it would have meant a permanent step up in company value. Bias: I'm one of the last developers hired before the stock crashed.

sbarre 4y ago
> You should read Tobi's post about what happened. That's not how it was. I did read that back when it was posted. I hope you recognize PR when you see it? Sorry if it came across like I was saying that companies are being evil or bad or vain about how they're hiring. Quite the opposite, and more dangerously, I think companies see nothing wrong with the boom-then-bust approach to hiring, and that it's going to happen more. And so my point here is that employees need to re-think how they look at job security in high-growth companies, and assume that they might be getting hired as part of a "bet" and not as part of a long-term strategy where the company has allocated the money to keep you around, like a lot of people assume when they take a full-time job (vs. a contract). Plenty of larger tech companies that did layoffs, Shopify included, were never in any real financial trouble. They just made bets that didn't pay off, and so they corrected and moved on.
- xal 4y ago
  I write my own posts, not PR. Don’t be so jaded.
  - skipants 4y ago

unity1001 4y ago

Its more likely that they calculated that the spike in ecommerce that was caused by people quarantineing in their houses would not last, but it would still remain higher than how it was. (And its likely that it did, when you adjust it to the economy). But nobody seems to have anticipated the Ukraine war and the sancitons hitting back the West itself, exacerbating inflation in the US and creating record inflation in Europe. That really kicked the balls of the tech industry. And judging from national currencies being used more in international trade now, its likely that the old environment with infinite cash and little to no inflation in the US will not return. Since all the dollars that are not being used by countries that are now trading in their own currencies seem to flow back to the US, causing inflation. Its likely that this may end the high cash influx, bloated stock share value economy and make the old format non-workable. But in the long run when the inflation and the prices settle, ecommerce should still be a profitable activity. Except that now companies would be valued on what actual revenue they are making, instead of the elusive and unpredictable potential value into the next decade which may or may not come. In short, less WeWorks, more companies with an actual business model that works immediately or in visible future.

jupp0r 4y ago

What you wrote doesn't make rational sense to me: 1. Why would Shopify willingly hire and train lots of people during the pandemic if they knew they'd let them go afterwards anyways? This makes no economic sense at all, they'd be better off to silently burn that money and not take the reputation hit. 2. You assume that layoff decisions take your individual job and situation into account. This is not the case in practice, especially so in quota driven mass layoffs.

vgel 4y ago
The argument isn't that they did evil stuff for no reason. The argument is they "bet" that growth would continue at pandemic levels, and hired to support that growth, with the plan that if the growth didn't continue and the new people weren't needed, they'd just lay them off. The opinion is that, if that was the plan (which Tobi's layoff post seems to confirm), that it's a crass way to operate. People uprooted their lives to work there. They quit old jobs, maybe moved cities or countries. Of course layoffs happen and companies make mistakes, but deliberately setting up a strategy with a high possibility of failure ("a bet") and then hiring people knowing that they'll be laid off if things outside their control don't go right in the near future--that's sort of crass. Obviously no exec was twirling their mustache and saying "find me Jim, we'll fire him first because I hate him". It was just a plan set up, seemingly, without regard for the outsized risk it placed on new employees relative to the possibility of the business itself failing. New employees that would disproportionately be affected by a layoff, by nature of being new employees.

b112 4y ago

That and be prepared for layoffs. Have a couple of months of runway put aside somewhere and don't touch it. This is really the only solution. Really, outside of very apparent issues with a company, no one has job security. It is an illusion. You must behave, financially, as if tomorrow is your last day at work. Because I think these cycles of boom-then-bust for growth are only going to get more frequent. People have been saying this for decades. If true, I think it is derived from a faster news cycle more than anything.