4 ms·

I’ve never worked for Big Tech, I’ve never even worked in one of the big tech hubs (Bay Area, anywhere in California, Seattle, Austin, NY, etc.), but I do have

I’ve never worked for Big Tech, I’ve never even worked in one of the big tech hubs (Bay Area, anywhere in California, Seattle, Austin, NY, etc.), but I do have a hefty 6 figure salary because of the tech workers in those areas. My worry is my company will start to look at laying us off so they can replace us with laid off tech workers at a much lower rate.

nicholasjarnold 4y ago
To add a counterpoint - I've heard senior executives remark about the likelihood that many of those let go are the not the employees that you really _want_ to pickup. The reasoning they've implied there is that these big companies that hire so voraciously have simply made some mistakes along the way and used the current happenings to jettison those mistakenly-hired employees swiftly and efficiently. Note: I'm sure many very talented people were caught up in this tide, too. I'm just relaying some anecdotal opinions that I've heard from hiring managers and execs in my personal and professional circles.
- tapatio 4y ago
  It also makes logical sense. Why would you let go of a 10X engineer? You'd have to be an idiot.
  - unity1001 4y ago
    > You'd have to be an idiot. Yep. Like someone who could do it through an algorithm. Like how Google did...
    - flavius29663 4y ago
      This is the first I hear of this, do you have a source for that?
      - unity1001 4y ago
        It was in one of the articles posted in HN. In the Open Source one I believe. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558576 https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/27/google_open_source/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/27/google_open_source/
  - anthomtb 4y ago
    >Why would let you of a 10X engineer? Because you axed a 400 person division and at least a few of those folks were the mythical 10X-ers. >You'd have to be an idiot. Maybe. There are plenty of idiots in upper management with the power to decide who stays and who goes. But back to the hypothetical 400 person division, the executive will see a spreadsheet with $$$ expenditure and -$$$ revenue and make the cut with little concern for individual abilities.
  - irrational 4y ago
    This was decades ago, but my uncle has a PhD in chemistry and worked for a very large and famous chemical company. They had a round of layoffs and fired his entire division. Well, he had a bunch of patents in his name that the company suddenly didn't have access to. Someone realized their mistake and asked him to come back. He already had multiple offers from competitors so they had to pay him a huge increase in salary and a bonus to come back. Mostly he didn't want to move his family, so he was willing to stay. Bottom line, there are and always have been idiots at every company.
    - buildbot 4y ago
      Were they from before working at that company? Pretty unusual for patents to not be assigned to the company they were working for though? If I leave Microsoft, my patents stay assigned to them while still authored by me/others.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tracker1 4y ago
  It goes in either direction... I think with Twitter, as an example, they ballooned and became more than an engineering culture... I think the layoffs were to really scale back to what is/was needed. Not necessarily a reflection on those let go, other than there were way more than needed for what the application is. I do hope they're able to be more agile moving forward, which seems to be the case so far. For other things, I think some of it is short sightedness and may or may not be good/bad. For many of these layoffs, it's probably office politics as much as anything else.
CptFribble 4y ago
I don't think you need to worry too much - those laid off workers are coming off hot SF salaries. Most of them won't really be at a "lower rate." A 5-year Googler laid off from $300k+ TC isn't going to just up and move to a low-COL area and displace someone for $100k-$150k. I gather there are a lot of smaller companies in the tech hubs that are happy to pay $200k+ for a former FAANG'er, and moving is hard - most people won't want to move, so they'll probably stick around in the tech hubs. And now that remote-for-everyone has transitioned into remote-for-some-hybrid-for-most, I don't think the tech workforce is as location-fluid as some might expect. Basically I think most people who aren't FAANG'ers, living outside the hubs and making "ok" money, are probably safe from getting displaced by the layoffs. A huge amount of the layoffs aren't even really coders, lots of recruiters/HR/support staff and so on are part of this, since they were making boatloads too but for arguably more replaceable work.
- tracker1 4y ago
  I do know one person who left NYC financial market job (as a developer, high pressure very high pay/bonus) for Phoenix area after 9/11 ... so I wouldn't say it's impossible... It might even be an opportunity, if you aren't trying to sell/buy a house right now. As for getting displaced... I would worry about that... in 2000-2001 a lot of companies in SF/SV folded and many more shrunk workforces rapidly in tech... it hit here by the end of 2001, and was near the end of 2002 before I was working regularly again (for 30% less)...

nicholasjarnold 4y ago

To add a counterpoint - I've heard senior executives remark about the likelihood that many of those let go are the not the employees that you really _want_ to pickup. The reasoning they've implied there is that these big companies that hire so voraciously have simply made some mistakes along the way and used the current happenings to jettison those mistakenly-hired employees swiftly and efficiently. Note: I'm sure many very talented people were caught up in this tide, too. I'm just relaying some anecdotal opinions that I've heard from hiring managers and execs in my personal and professional circles.

tapatio 4y ago
It also makes logical sense. Why would you let go of a 10X engineer? You'd have to be an idiot.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > You'd have to be an idiot. Yep. Like someone who could do it through an algorithm. Like how Google did...
  - flavius29663 4y ago
    This is the first I hear of this, do you have a source for that?
    - unity1001 4y ago
      It was in one of the articles posted in HN. In the Open Source one I believe. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558576 https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/27/google_open_source/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/27/google_open_source/
- anthomtb 4y ago
  >Why would let you of a 10X engineer? Because you axed a 400 person division and at least a few of those folks were the mythical 10X-ers. >You'd have to be an idiot. Maybe. There are plenty of idiots in upper management with the power to decide who stays and who goes. But back to the hypothetical 400 person division, the executive will see a spreadsheet with $$$ expenditure and -$$$ revenue and make the cut with little concern for individual abilities.
- irrational 4y ago
  This was decades ago, but my uncle has a PhD in chemistry and worked for a very large and famous chemical company. They had a round of layoffs and fired his entire division. Well, he had a bunch of patents in his name that the company suddenly didn't have access to. Someone realized their mistake and asked him to come back. He already had multiple offers from competitors so they had to pay him a huge increase in salary and a bonus to come back. Mostly he didn't want to move his family, so he was willing to stay. Bottom line, there are and always have been idiots at every company.
  - buildbot 4y ago
    Were they from before working at that company? Pretty unusual for patents to not be assigned to the company they were working for though? If I leave Microsoft, my patents stay assigned to them while still authored by me/others.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tracker1 4y ago
It goes in either direction... I think with Twitter, as an example, they ballooned and became more than an engineering culture... I think the layoffs were to really scale back to what is/was needed. Not necessarily a reflection on those let go, other than there were way more than needed for what the application is. I do hope they're able to be more agile moving forward, which seems to be the case so far. For other things, I think some of it is short sightedness and may or may not be good/bad. For many of these layoffs, it's probably office politics as much as anything else.

CptFribble 4y ago

I don't think you need to worry too much - those laid off workers are coming off hot SF salaries. Most of them won't really be at a "lower rate." A 5-year Googler laid off from $300k+ TC isn't going to just up and move to a low-COL area and displace someone for $100k-$150k. I gather there are a lot of smaller companies in the tech hubs that are happy to pay $200k+ for a former FAANG'er, and moving is hard - most people won't want to move, so they'll probably stick around in the tech hubs. And now that remote-for-everyone has transitioned into remote-for-some-hybrid-for-most, I don't think the tech workforce is as location-fluid as some might expect. Basically I think most people who aren't FAANG'ers, living outside the hubs and making "ok" money, are probably safe from getting displaced by the layoffs. A huge amount of the layoffs aren't even really coders, lots of recruiters/HR/support staff and so on are part of this, since they were making boatloads too but for arguably more replaceable work.

tracker1 4y ago
I do know one person who left NYC financial market job (as a developer, high pressure very high pay/bonus) for Phoenix area after 9/11 ... so I wouldn't say it's impossible... It might even be an opportunity, if you aren't trying to sell/buy a house right now. As for getting displaced... I would worry about that... in 2000-2001 a lot of companies in SF/SV folded and many more shrunk workforces rapidly in tech... it hit here by the end of 2001, and was near the end of 2002 before I was working regularly again (for 30% less)...