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Problem with these layoffs are tho that they will affect long tenured folk as well as newish hires. Dumb decision after dumb decision.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
As someone else here said it, and as I've learned from my friends in management, layoffs aren't purely random. They're letting go of the people who's compensation is higher than the value the company perceived the employee adds or fails to add to the company relative to their compensation. If you've negociated an amazing compensation at the hight of the hiring boom aka the great resignation, when the market was red hot, but your performance reviews aren't stellar, chances are you're on your way out. But if you haven't negociated a high raise in the last few years and you're getting great performance reviews, chances are you're staying. It's relatively clear cut. No company is letting go of people who do great work at market rate. They're letting go of people they perceive to be underperforming relative to their above market rate wages. It's that simple. We can go into semantics that your performance review in most cases never accurately reflects the value you add or don't add to the company, but this has always been like that, especially in the large companies where the big layoffs are happening. You're always at the mercy of your manager giving you great reviews.
- clnq 4y ago
  Many top performers leave after layoffs. They know they can easily get work elsewhere and don't want to deal with the post-layoff chaos or job uncertainty. There are also many forces pulling them away from the company - headhunter pressure increases after layoffs, their fired friends are going to a set of companies (or starting their own) and asking them to come over, and the cynicism that spreads in companies after mass layoffs (where some people are always laid off unjustly, some promising projects are often spun down indiscriminately, some critical areas of code almost always become unmaintainable post layoffs, etc). Layoffs never just get rid of the targeted people. They usually get rid of employee morale and top performers, too.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    I never said layoffs were not unjustly, I said they're not random like people think but target a subset of employees that the company currently flagged as undesirable for whatever flawed metrics each company uses. >There are also many forces pulling them away from the company - headhunter pressure increases after layoffs, their fired friends are going to a set of companies If they're so many forces pulling them away form the company like headhunter or colleagues, why are we acting like the layoffs are a tragedy to happen to them? The way you phrased it sounds like a blessing.
    - throwanem 4y ago
      The argument is that layoffs tend to incur follow-on decisions to depart being made by people who were not laid off. I don't necessarily have an opinion about that - I've seen exoduses, but not (yet?) for that reason - but my inbox at least corroborates a sharp increase in the rate of headhunting lately.
    - clnq 4y ago
      The "tragedy of layoffs" is not that the top talent won't find other work. It's more about the people who will be unjustly affected. Those that are let go through no fault of their own, those whose morale and work satisfaction is destroyed, those who were hopeful for and dedicated to projects now being canned, those who will have visa uncertainty, those who have to go through the stress of a job change, and others put in similar circumstances. Top talent is not excluded from this. But they will find work.
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        > It's more about the people who will be unjustly affected People are unjustly affected at work on a daily basis everywhere, especially outside of big tech. Unjustly affected big tech workers will easily find better options elsewhere. I don't get the tear shedding and pandemonium.
        infamia 4y ago
- gorgoiler 4y ago
  That’s a really interesting perspective. How much is point-in-time performance compared with potential-future-performance? Meta level E3 with a crazy post-college salary looks like a waste of money on paper, but if they are looking like the kind of person who will make Staff Engineer in 24 months you’d want to keep them on board. Similarly, a Staff Engineer with 4y of tenure, vested out, and killing it feels like a flight risk. Do you go out of your way to retain them, knowing they’ll probably leave soon anyway? I’m just speculating here. Are there any real patterns like this that you’ve heard of?
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >but if they are looking like the kind of person who will make Staff Engineer in 24 months you’d want to keep them on board. What if, after hiring them, you realize they definitely won't cut it as a staff engineer? Bad hirings slip through all the time. Just because someone can leetcode doesn't automatically mean they'll reach every wild target you throw at them.
- infamia 4y ago
  The higher up the food chain you go, the more arbitrary and random it becomes. The strategy around these layoffs are typically very poorly conceived and mostly involve cutting to a number across the board, which is random and pants on head stupid. There is typically little or no in depth analysis, which typically ends up cutting muscle or even bone in the company while many area of the company are left fat and bloated. Pretending that you will almost certainly be fine if you're in line with the rest of the herd is the myth that senior management wants you to believe. Certainly, if you make a ton of money and dont deliver value, you are at high risk, but if your department is seriously bloated, you probably stand a similar chance to getting the axe as the Average Joe down the hall who works in a tower that runs a tight ship. When senior leadership tells middle managers to cut a certain amount across the board, which is very common, there is vastly uneven damage across the organization.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

As someone else here said it, and as I've learned from my friends in management, layoffs aren't purely random. They're letting go of the people who's compensation is higher than the value the company perceived the employee adds or fails to add to the company relative to their compensation. If you've negociated an amazing compensation at the hight of the hiring boom aka the great resignation, when the market was red hot, but your performance reviews aren't stellar, chances are you're on your way out. But if you haven't negociated a high raise in the last few years and you're getting great performance reviews, chances are you're staying. It's relatively clear cut. No company is letting go of people who do great work at market rate. They're letting go of people they perceive to be underperforming relative to their above market rate wages. It's that simple. We can go into semantics that your performance review in most cases never accurately reflects the value you add or don't add to the company, but this has always been like that, especially in the large companies where the big layoffs are happening. You're always at the mercy of your manager giving you great reviews.

clnq 4y ago
Many top performers leave after layoffs. They know they can easily get work elsewhere and don't want to deal with the post-layoff chaos or job uncertainty. There are also many forces pulling them away from the company - headhunter pressure increases after layoffs, their fired friends are going to a set of companies (or starting their own) and asking them to come over, and the cynicism that spreads in companies after mass layoffs (where some people are always laid off unjustly, some promising projects are often spun down indiscriminately, some critical areas of code almost always become unmaintainable post layoffs, etc). Layoffs never just get rid of the targeted people. They usually get rid of employee morale and top performers, too.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  I never said layoffs were not unjustly, I said they're not random like people think but target a subset of employees that the company currently flagged as undesirable for whatever flawed metrics each company uses. >There are also many forces pulling them away from the company - headhunter pressure increases after layoffs, their fired friends are going to a set of companies If they're so many forces pulling them away form the company like headhunter or colleagues, why are we acting like the layoffs are a tragedy to happen to them? The way you phrased it sounds like a blessing.
  - throwanem 4y ago
    The argument is that layoffs tend to incur follow-on decisions to depart being made by people who were not laid off. I don't necessarily have an opinion about that - I've seen exoduses, but not (yet?) for that reason - but my inbox at least corroborates a sharp increase in the rate of headhunting lately.
  - clnq 4y ago
    The "tragedy of layoffs" is not that the top talent won't find other work. It's more about the people who will be unjustly affected. Those that are let go through no fault of their own, those whose morale and work satisfaction is destroyed, those who were hopeful for and dedicated to projects now being canned, those who will have visa uncertainty, those who have to go through the stress of a job change, and others put in similar circumstances. Top talent is not excluded from this. But they will find work.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      > It's more about the people who will be unjustly affected People are unjustly affected at work on a daily basis everywhere, especially outside of big tech. Unjustly affected big tech workers will easily find better options elsewhere. I don't get the tear shedding and pandemonium.
      - infamia 4y ago
gorgoiler 4y ago
That’s a really interesting perspective. How much is point-in-time performance compared with potential-future-performance? Meta level E3 with a crazy post-college salary looks like a waste of money on paper, but if they are looking like the kind of person who will make Staff Engineer in 24 months you’d want to keep them on board. Similarly, a Staff Engineer with 4y of tenure, vested out, and killing it feels like a flight risk. Do you go out of your way to retain them, knowing they’ll probably leave soon anyway? I’m just speculating here. Are there any real patterns like this that you’ve heard of?
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >but if they are looking like the kind of person who will make Staff Engineer in 24 months you’d want to keep them on board. What if, after hiring them, you realize they definitely won't cut it as a staff engineer? Bad hirings slip through all the time. Just because someone can leetcode doesn't automatically mean they'll reach every wild target you throw at them.
infamia 4y ago
The higher up the food chain you go, the more arbitrary and random it becomes. The strategy around these layoffs are typically very poorly conceived and mostly involve cutting to a number across the board, which is random and pants on head stupid. There is typically little or no in depth analysis, which typically ends up cutting muscle or even bone in the company while many area of the company are left fat and bloated. Pretending that you will almost certainly be fine if you're in line with the rest of the herd is the myth that senior management wants you to believe. Certainly, if you make a ton of money and dont deliver value, you are at high risk, but if your department is seriously bloated, you probably stand a similar chance to getting the axe as the Average Joe down the hall who works in a tower that runs a tight ship. When senior leadership tells middle managers to cut a certain amount across the board, which is very common, there is vastly uneven damage across the organization.