5 ms·

>then start hiring as necessary with the kind of people you want. That assumes that people will still want to work for Twitter after all of this. Given that t

by janoc 4y ago

>then start hiring as necessary with the kind of people you want. That assumes that people will still want to work for Twitter after all of this. Given that there is no shortage of jobs for engineers even after massive layoffs at Facebook/Meta and Twitter, many people are going to think twice about signing up to work for a company and owner that have a reputation for treating people as disposable trash. Employees are the company's most valuable capital - so if you unceremoniously boot out the most experienced staff that was keeping the ship afloat and expect to replace them with cheap new hires while maintaining productivity, security and revenue (which weren't great at Twitter to begin with), you would have to be delusional. Some layoffs were likely justified but thanks to the hamfisted way they were done I am sorry for the recruiters that will have to look for new staff now. They will have a very unenviable job.

rchaud 4y ago
I'm sure he can drag some Tesla software engineers in for a few months to fill the gaps. That's how this works, right? /s
- gw98 4y ago
  Yup. I've been that guy twice on projects. Started a contract. Oh all the other guys were fired/left! I laughed inside a bit, took the 6 months pay and watched it tank both times because there was fuck all I could do about it but was contracted for butts on seats only. I was an expensive parachute into a slurry pit.
  - kergonath 4y ago
    > I was an expensive parachute into a slurry pit. Such a lovely metaphor. Now that I think about it, I’ve felt like that at times…
scarface_74 4y ago
> Given that there is no shortage of jobs for engineers Where are these jobs? At startups that see they may not get another round of funding soon? At unprofitable recently IPOd unicorns that are losing money and cutting back staff? At Amazon (where I work) that just announced a hiring freeze? At Google where they admitted over hiring?
- chitowneats 4y ago
  The categories you just mentioned probably don't even equal half of SWE employment in the U.S.
  - scarface_74 4y ago
    So let’s talk about the other side of the market that I am also familiar with “enterprise development” [1] - banks, bespoke internal apps that will never see the light of day outside of the company, etc. Those companies are also cutting back. [1] I work at $BigTech. But my work involves cloud consulting mostly with enterprises and I spent most of my 20+ career as your standard “enterprise dev”.
  - rednerrus 4y ago
    The market is going to get tight if FAANG is on a hiring freeze/laying people off. Other companies are going to look to the FAANGs to make their decisions. It was real hot for a year but if you stick 20k developers on the market at the same time you take 20k jobs off the market combined with other companies going cold. The market is going to get tougher, even for SWE/OPS.
  - rusticpenn 4y ago
    Slowly most of these companies are going to freeze their hiring.
stickfigure 4y ago
> That assumes that people will still want to work for Twitter after all of this. Just a data point, but Twitter is now much more interesting to me (as a place of work) than it was before. Which is to say, it went from zero interest to "maybe?" * Chaos provides opportunities to make real changes instead of being just a tiny cog doing what you're told. * Advancement is going to be faster in a fast-changing organization. * It's in "go big or go broke" mode. After a year you're probably going to know which. Better than spending a decade working for a zombie. * I'm left-of-center, yet... I find political tribalism really fucking annoying. Musk could only improve Twitter in this regard. So it's a mixed bag. I don't have strong opinions about Twitter (I'm not really a user) but it's way too early to be writing epitaphs.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  I agree. I still don't think I could bring myself to work for an adtech company, but pre-Musk twitter seemed particularly bad. Bloated, slow-moving, and stale, no direction, no vision. And if the vlogs coming out of there were any indication, a boring vapid, shallow, and entitled culture. After Musk, there is potential where previously there was none.
  - datavirtue 4y ago
    After Musk, there is potential where previously, before Trump, there was none.
- babypuncher 4y ago
  > I'm left-of-center, yet... I find political tribalism really fucking annoying. Musk could only improve Twitter in this regard. I'm not so sure about this, anything he gets involved in only seems to get worse in this regard.
- scarface_74 4y ago
  I’m sure the folks at Yahoo thought the same as it muffled along for years…
- schwartzworld 4y ago
SanjayMehta 4y ago
There will be people who want to work for Musk.

by janoc 4y ago

rchaud 4y ago

I'm sure he can drag some Tesla software engineers in for a few months to fill the gaps. That's how this works, right? /s

gw98 4y ago
Yup. I've been that guy twice on projects. Started a contract. Oh all the other guys were fired/left! I laughed inside a bit, took the 6 months pay and watched it tank both times because there was fuck all I could do about it but was contracted for butts on seats only. I was an expensive parachute into a slurry pit.
- kergonath 4y ago
  > I was an expensive parachute into a slurry pit. Such a lovely metaphor. Now that I think about it, I’ve felt like that at times…

scarface_74 4y ago

> Given that there is no shortage of jobs for engineers Where are these jobs? At startups that see they may not get another round of funding soon? At unprofitable recently IPOd unicorns that are losing money and cutting back staff? At Amazon (where I work) that just announced a hiring freeze? At Google where they admitted over hiring?

chitowneats 4y ago
The categories you just mentioned probably don't even equal half of SWE employment in the U.S.
- scarface_74 4y ago
  So let’s talk about the other side of the market that I am also familiar with “enterprise development” [1] - banks, bespoke internal apps that will never see the light of day outside of the company, etc. Those companies are also cutting back. [1] I work at $BigTech. But my work involves cloud consulting mostly with enterprises and I spent most of my 20+ career as your standard “enterprise dev”.
- rednerrus 4y ago
  The market is going to get tight if FAANG is on a hiring freeze/laying people off. Other companies are going to look to the FAANGs to make their decisions. It was real hot for a year but if you stick 20k developers on the market at the same time you take 20k jobs off the market combined with other companies going cold. The market is going to get tougher, even for SWE/OPS.
- rusticpenn 4y ago
  Slowly most of these companies are going to freeze their hiring.

stickfigure 4y ago

> That assumes that people will still want to work for Twitter after all of this. Just a data point, but Twitter is now much more interesting to me (as a place of work) than it was before. Which is to say, it went from zero interest to "maybe?" * Chaos provides opportunities to make real changes instead of being just a tiny cog doing what you're told. * Advancement is going to be faster in a fast-changing organization. * It's in "go big or go broke" mode. After a year you're probably going to know which. Better than spending a decade working for a zombie. * I'm left-of-center, yet... I find political tribalism really fucking annoying. Musk could only improve Twitter in this regard. So it's a mixed bag. I don't have strong opinions about Twitter (I'm not really a user) but it's way too early to be writing epitaphs.

throwawaylinux 4y ago
I agree. I still don't think I could bring myself to work for an adtech company, but pre-Musk twitter seemed particularly bad. Bloated, slow-moving, and stale, no direction, no vision. And if the vlogs coming out of there were any indication, a boring vapid, shallow, and entitled culture. After Musk, there is potential where previously there was none.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  After Musk, there is potential where previously, before Trump, there was none.
babypuncher 4y ago
> I'm left-of-center, yet... I find political tribalism really fucking annoying. Musk could only improve Twitter in this regard. I'm not so sure about this, anything he gets involved in only seems to get worse in this regard.
scarface_74 4y ago
I’m sure the folks at Yahoo thought the same as it muffled along for years…
schwartzworld 4y ago

SanjayMehta 4y ago

There will be people who want to work for Musk.