6 ms·

4 months is relatively generous but... > if you can't find a new job in 4 months, it's on you, This statement feels _wrong_. We are all subject to macro trend

4 months is relatively generous but... > if you can't find a new job in 4 months, it's on you, This statement feels _wrong_. We are all subject to macro trends that we don't have control over. They impact our lives. Even the well off tech people but especially people in other industries.

verst 4y ago
Good luck finding a job in this economy now. It's tough for everyone, even the most skilled. Many companies have outright hiring freezes. I just read that Amazon now has a hiring freeze for all corporate jobs, previously this only impacted retail, stores etc
- relaxing 4y ago
  What economy are you in? I still see plenty of job postings on the East coast. Anyway, if you were looking for a break from Stripe’s culture you’re not gonna be happy at AMZN.
  - verst 4y ago
    I work on cloud computing services (PaaS / BaaS) and infrastructure. All the big employers in this space have hiring freezes. I used to get 20 recruiting emails from Amazon a month. Now they have a complete corporate hiring freeze. The saying here in Seattle goes that if you can't find a job you could always try one of the many Amazon roles because they were always hiring. Not so anymore. EDIT: if parent comment is referring to Amazon job postings, the all up corporate hiring freeze was just announced this morning!
    - system2 4y ago
      You are talking about a niche. There is more jobs than employees can fill. Companies are begging to find qualified employees.
      - mr90210 4y ago
        I second that.
      - verst 4y ago
        Sure, but what about the psychological impact / feelings of people when reading all the news of hiring freezes? For example engineers that were laid off at Stripe in Seattle ordinarily have a good chance of getting a job at Amazon, but now Amazon isn't hiring. That combination certainly causes folks to feel uneasy. Additionally, cities like Seattle are expensive and not all companies pay equally well. If you bought a house on a single income but suddenly cannot find a new job paying enough to pay your bills, then that's a problem too. Previously there were lots of jobs of similar pay to go around. In the current economy that is no longer the case. Suddenly you will need to make some tough choices. Yes we can argue that nobody should have put themselves into such a position in the first place, but buying a house is incredibly difficult in markets like Seattle and San Francisco, and so I don't blame people who are now in this predicament.
        system2 4y ago
        >but now Amazon isn't hiring Amazon is not the only company. There are literally millions of companies out there. They can stop being so delicate and suck it up and work somewhere else than FAANG. >If you bought a house on a single income but suddenly cannot find a new job paying enough to pay your bills Have you seen the tv show called x-files? Trust No One. Don't make big financial decisions by depending on someone else. Save enough to save yourself from that kind of trouble and find a job. It doesn't need to be Amazon. Suck it up and survive. I blame people who cry after making $200k+ and not saving. I blame them for making weird financial decisions and thinking their social status depends on their job titles at certain companies. Life is fast and everchanging. You must trust no one and be self sufficient.
    - srcreigh 4y ago
      Someone from Amazon emailed me a few hours ago
- mtkd 4y ago
  My email has gone from big recruitment finders-fee offers in spring to a drip of single 'seasoned candidate available' contacts in summer to '3 hand picked senior CVs enclosed' this week It's possibly going to be hard yards for many people over next few months -- but lots of successful companies were born in such periods I hope it works out for OP and everyone else impacted -- maybe one will build the next Stripe
- themagician 4y ago
  People are hiring everywhere, and for like 1/3rd of the jobs you can work from home. It may get nasty in the next few months, but not today. For most people in the job market today the unemployment rate is literally the lowest it's been in their entire lifetime.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  A good strategy is to lower your compensation expectations significantly. You might get paid 40% or 50% of previous pay, but you still have solid ground under your feet and for once you might get an interesting project you always wanted to do, using some tech you never had time to try. Add it's not slavery, you can change jobs again when market improves.
- austenallred 4y ago
  As someone who trains a _lot_ of junior engineers and data scientists, it’s harder than 2021 but for an experienced engineer it’s frankly not that hard to find work right now.
- csomar 4y ago
  Unemployment is near all time lows. The number of employed people is near all time high, and many have quit the job market (due to Covid). We are quite far from the scenario you are describing. Finding your dream job? Maybe not. Finding a job in this market? It should be cakes.
true_religion 4y ago
I think what they mean is that morally, people need to take care of themselves. After four months, a past employer shouldn't still be on the hook for taking care of a person. The past employer has new employees and that money needs to go to them.
- IanPBann 4y ago
  If they're cutting staff at that quantity it's almost certainly to save money, and the money saved from laying off employees shouldn't be going towards funding new hires.
AlwaysRock 4y ago
Right. A SWE I-IV might be easily able to step into another job, even another job with a similar comp level. But lots of folks, even tech folks, cant do it as quickly. Director of QA? Might be tough and you'll likely turn down 10 manager of QA roles that want you to do hands on work along the way. UX Research? You have a specific skill set that might be very useful at a large company but a lot of companies will want you to do more or handle more than you did previously. Thats two examples but there are countless others. Plus a lot of folks go to Stripe as their first FANG+_job. They might not be able to step into another FANG+ role and could have to take a massive pay cut in their next roll.
- badpun 4y ago
  > Thats two examples but there are countless others. Plus a lot of folks go to Stripe as their first FANG+_job. They might not be able to step into another FANG+ role and could have to take a massive pay cut in their next roll. Oh, the woes of dropping from 98th income percentile to 95th...
  - AlwaysRock 4y ago
    I know you are joking but dropping from 250K to 125K is a significant life change and while you would still be fine in most of the US it could be really damaging for many families.
dangus 4y ago
Steering a bit into /r/antiwork territory, I agree. We are forced to work. We did not choose to work. The choice is to work or live under a bridge/get woken up by cops and thrown in jail. When employers take away our ability to work, they are directly assaulting our ability to survive. Wild animals don't have this problem. If you're a deer you literally run around all day eating plants and fucking. Sure, the animal kingdom has a whole host of other concerns, but my point is that we've replaced all those with a system and we don't have any choice but to live within the boundaries of that system. It's not legal to live a deer's lifestyle as a human. In our system's status quo, companies are allowed and encouraged to speculatively over-hire. There is no consequence for doing so. They figure that having a few too many employees is an easily correctable problem, so it's safer to just hire aggressively and hope it pans out. If not, oh well, the business isn't the one paying the price. I think it would be a good idea for businesses to be required to pay average pay out severances to laid off employees, and that requirement should extend beyond this "generous" 4 months. I also think about hourly employees where severance is a foreign concept. Maybe then they'd run their businesses more conservatively instead of making moonshot gambles with human lives. Maybe it's not the best policy for "the economy" or "innovation" or "competitive business" but we have more than enough resources to provide for the humans of this world, we just choose not to allocate them fairly.
- nullc 4y ago
  You might enjoy: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolition-of-work https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolit... > Wild animals don't have this problem. If you're a deer you literally run around all day eating plants and fucking. Sure, the animal kingdom has a whole host of other concerns, but my point is that we've replaced all those with a system and we don't have any choice but to live within the boundaries of that system. It's not legal to live a deer's lifestyle as a human. I have a heard of 15 or so deer on my property. I spend a lot of time watching them, they seem to spend most of their time chewing their cud and watching for things that want to eat them but they seem pretty well adapted to it. They have a pretty good life overall. However, the deer don't have a choice either, but if they were given the choice to live as a typical human I doubt they'd take it. :) But then again, most people wouldn't choose to live as deer either.
tedunangst 4y ago
Is Stripe not also subject to macro trends?
- GordonS 4y ago
  Stripe have macro-level funding and profits; you can't compare an enormous company to an individual.
radu_floricica 4y ago
Fair point. It's a bad situation for everybody. Digging for blame probably leads to lockdowns and printing money in the Corona days, and later to eco-legislation being passed in Europe right before Russia started WW3. Plus, of course, Russia for starting WW3. Ah, and China for using real estate as savings accounts, and burning a fair 50% of its international goodwill by squashing civil rights in Hong Kong. Stripe CEOs are just trying to do right by their company and most of their employees. But yes, times are tough for everybody, and I probably shouldn't have minimized that.

verst 4y ago

Good luck finding a job in this economy now. It's tough for everyone, even the most skilled. Many companies have outright hiring freezes. I just read that Amazon now has a hiring freeze for all corporate jobs, previously this only impacted retail, stores etc

relaxing 4y ago
What economy are you in? I still see plenty of job postings on the East coast. Anyway, if you were looking for a break from Stripe’s culture you’re not gonna be happy at AMZN.
- verst 4y ago
  I work on cloud computing services (PaaS / BaaS) and infrastructure. All the big employers in this space have hiring freezes. I used to get 20 recruiting emails from Amazon a month. Now they have a complete corporate hiring freeze. The saying here in Seattle goes that if you can't find a job you could always try one of the many Amazon roles because they were always hiring. Not so anymore. EDIT: if parent comment is referring to Amazon job postings, the all up corporate hiring freeze was just announced this morning!
  - system2 4y ago
    You are talking about a niche. There is more jobs than employees can fill. Companies are begging to find qualified employees.
    - mr90210 4y ago
      I second that.
    - verst 4y ago
      Sure, but what about the psychological impact / feelings of people when reading all the news of hiring freezes? For example engineers that were laid off at Stripe in Seattle ordinarily have a good chance of getting a job at Amazon, but now Amazon isn't hiring. That combination certainly causes folks to feel uneasy. Additionally, cities like Seattle are expensive and not all companies pay equally well. If you bought a house on a single income but suddenly cannot find a new job paying enough to pay your bills, then that's a problem too. Previously there were lots of jobs of similar pay to go around. In the current economy that is no longer the case. Suddenly you will need to make some tough choices. Yes we can argue that nobody should have put themselves into such a position in the first place, but buying a house is incredibly difficult in markets like Seattle and San Francisco, and so I don't blame people who are now in this predicament.
      - system2 4y ago
        >but now Amazon isn't hiring Amazon is not the only company. There are literally millions of companies out there. They can stop being so delicate and suck it up and work somewhere else than FAANG. >If you bought a house on a single income but suddenly cannot find a new job paying enough to pay your bills Have you seen the tv show called x-files? Trust No One. Don't make big financial decisions by depending on someone else. Save enough to save yourself from that kind of trouble and find a job. It doesn't need to be Amazon. Suck it up and survive. I blame people who cry after making $200k+ and not saving. I blame them for making weird financial decisions and thinking their social status depends on their job titles at certain companies. Life is fast and everchanging. You must trust no one and be self sufficient.
  - srcreigh 4y ago
    Someone from Amazon emailed me a few hours ago
mtkd 4y ago
My email has gone from big recruitment finders-fee offers in spring to a drip of single 'seasoned candidate available' contacts in summer to '3 hand picked senior CVs enclosed' this week It's possibly going to be hard yards for many people over next few months -- but lots of successful companies were born in such periods I hope it works out for OP and everyone else impacted -- maybe one will build the next Stripe
themagician 4y ago
People are hiring everywhere, and for like 1/3rd of the jobs you can work from home. It may get nasty in the next few months, but not today. For most people in the job market today the unemployment rate is literally the lowest it's been in their entire lifetime.
Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
A good strategy is to lower your compensation expectations significantly. You might get paid 40% or 50% of previous pay, but you still have solid ground under your feet and for once you might get an interesting project you always wanted to do, using some tech you never had time to try. Add it's not slavery, you can change jobs again when market improves.
austenallred 4y ago
As someone who trains a _lot_ of junior engineers and data scientists, it’s harder than 2021 but for an experienced engineer it’s frankly not that hard to find work right now.
csomar 4y ago
Unemployment is near all time lows. The number of employed people is near all time high, and many have quit the job market (due to Covid). We are quite far from the scenario you are describing. Finding your dream job? Maybe not. Finding a job in this market? It should be cakes.

true_religion 4y ago

I think what they mean is that morally, people need to take care of themselves. After four months, a past employer shouldn't still be on the hook for taking care of a person. The past employer has new employees and that money needs to go to them.

IanPBann 4y ago
If they're cutting staff at that quantity it's almost certainly to save money, and the money saved from laying off employees shouldn't be going towards funding new hires.

AlwaysRock 4y ago

Right. A SWE I-IV might be easily able to step into another job, even another job with a similar comp level. But lots of folks, even tech folks, cant do it as quickly. Director of QA? Might be tough and you'll likely turn down 10 manager of QA roles that want you to do hands on work along the way. UX Research? You have a specific skill set that might be very useful at a large company but a lot of companies will want you to do more or handle more than you did previously. Thats two examples but there are countless others. Plus a lot of folks go to Stripe as their first FANG+_job. They might not be able to step into another FANG+ role and could have to take a massive pay cut in their next roll.

badpun 4y ago
> Thats two examples but there are countless others. Plus a lot of folks go to Stripe as their first FANG+_job. They might not be able to step into another FANG+ role and could have to take a massive pay cut in their next roll. Oh, the woes of dropping from 98th income percentile to 95th...
- AlwaysRock 4y ago
  I know you are joking but dropping from 250K to 125K is a significant life change and while you would still be fine in most of the US it could be really damaging for many families.

dangus 4y ago

Steering a bit into /r/antiwork territory, I agree. We are forced to work. We did not choose to work. The choice is to work or live under a bridge/get woken up by cops and thrown in jail. When employers take away our ability to work, they are directly assaulting our ability to survive. Wild animals don't have this problem. If you're a deer you literally run around all day eating plants and fucking. Sure, the animal kingdom has a whole host of other concerns, but my point is that we've replaced all those with a system and we don't have any choice but to live within the boundaries of that system. It's not legal to live a deer's lifestyle as a human. In our system's status quo, companies are allowed and encouraged to speculatively over-hire. There is no consequence for doing so. They figure that having a few too many employees is an easily correctable problem, so it's safer to just hire aggressively and hope it pans out. If not, oh well, the business isn't the one paying the price. I think it would be a good idea for businesses to be required to pay average pay out severances to laid off employees, and that requirement should extend beyond this "generous" 4 months. I also think about hourly employees where severance is a foreign concept. Maybe then they'd run their businesses more conservatively instead of making moonshot gambles with human lives. Maybe it's not the best policy for "the economy" or "innovation" or "competitive business" but we have more than enough resources to provide for the humans of this world, we just choose not to allocate them fairly.

nullc 4y ago
You might enjoy: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolition-of-work https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolit... > Wild animals don't have this problem. If you're a deer you literally run around all day eating plants and fucking. Sure, the animal kingdom has a whole host of other concerns, but my point is that we've replaced all those with a system and we don't have any choice but to live within the boundaries of that system. It's not legal to live a deer's lifestyle as a human. I have a heard of 15 or so deer on my property. I spend a lot of time watching them, they seem to spend most of their time chewing their cud and watching for things that want to eat them but they seem pretty well adapted to it. They have a pretty good life overall. However, the deer don't have a choice either, but if they were given the choice to live as a typical human I doubt they'd take it. :) But then again, most people wouldn't choose to live as deer either.

tedunangst 4y ago

Is Stripe not also subject to macro trends?

GordonS 4y ago
Stripe have macro-level funding and profits; you can't compare an enormous company to an individual.

radu_floricica 4y ago

Fair point. It's a bad situation for everybody. Digging for blame probably leads to lockdowns and printing money in the Corona days, and later to eco-legislation being passed in Europe right before Russia started WW3. Plus, of course, Russia for starting WW3. Ah, and China for using real estate as savings accounts, and burning a fair 50% of its international goodwill by squashing civil rights in Hong Kong. Stripe CEOs are just trying to do right by their company and most of their employees. But yes, times are tough for everybody, and I probably shouldn't have minimized that.