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> will likely only cause your A players (who are probably still very much in demand) to look elsewhere. As other have said: is there such a high demand right n

• hylaride 4y ago
  It's not white hot like it was 1-3 years ago, but if you're qualified and experienced, yes there very much is still demand from non-FAANG companies.
  • dangwhy 4y ago
    taking 50% paycut isn't easy.
    • hylaride 4y ago
      The way FAANG stocks have performed, you've already taken that if you work for one considering how much of their total comp tended to be RSUs (with the exception of apple).
      • dangwhy 4y ago
        Facebook gave out refreshers and bonuses even this review cycle.
  • andsoitis 4y ago
    While that might be true: a) the technical challenges at these large tech companies are probably way more interesting b) compensation is very likely better c) you are working with many many more peers who are super talented
    • dx034 4y ago
      Aren't technical challenges at smaller companies usually much more interesting? Pay is worse, but smaller companies usually offer much more freedom to implement your ideas and shape the company.
      • rattlesnakedave 4y ago
        It depends on what you mean by "smaller." At the majority of smaller companies, it's just CRUD app stuff, probably in C#, with significantly less freedom (often beholden to very non technical middle management).
        • itsoktocry 4y ago
          >At the majority of smaller companies, it's just CRUD app stuff, probably in C#, with significantly less freedom This is a very strange point-of-view. I've worked in "small" (~100 employees or fewer) business my entire career, and not once was it strictly CRUD stuff in C#. The freedom is debatable, I guess, since I have no experience at larger companies, but I certainly never found that my freedom is confined. Most often there is opportunity to contribute anywhere and everywhere, and management is happy to have the help.
          • quacked 4y ago
            I'm not a dev but still highly technical, and devs turning their noses up at "CRUD stuff" always makes me laugh. It reminds me of the musicians I know who won't play in certain styles because it's not "meaningful" or "true to their artistic vision". Bud I was at your last gig, you don't sound that great even when you're playing "meaningful" music. Similarly, most of the devs I've worked with that are obsessed with "exciting" work still turn out pretty questionable stuff, and their careers would probably be better served if the built out a "simple" CRUD app, took it really seriously, and then examined the effects of their design on other teams.
        • dx034 4y ago
          Is that bad? You can solve interesting challenges in C# with CRUD stuff. Nothing that scales to millions of users, but there are challenges other than scaling.
• troupe 4y ago
  Very good point. There is a big difference between random layoffs and laying off the bottom 20%.
• dx034 4y ago
  In most big companies I've worked at, I thought I could identify the people who made everyone slower and were a net negative to productivity. However, they never seemed to be the ones threatened to be fired. Often they were really good at playing corporate games so that it was really hard to justify firing them, while the ones fired were junior employees who had great potential but weren't as good at politics yet. So while FB certainly intended to fire underperformers and increase average performance, I doubt they were able to identify the right people for that.
  • syntheticnature 4y ago
    Indeed. While one should always look to check on other biases in play, in my experience "F" players survive layoffs almost as often as "A" players, and it's those in the middle that get hit. (Sometimes this may be because the "F" players aren't getting paid as much, and are therefore cheap.) Not to mention that the remaining "A" players may each be saddled with the work of ten laid-off "C" players because, as far as management is concerned, programmers are fungible. Why not have their 10x programmer take care of it?
  • itsoktocry 4y ago
    >I thought I could identify the people who made everyone slower and were a net negative to productivity. However, they never seemed to be the ones threatened to be fired. Or maybe you're not as good of a judge of these things as you think?
    • dx034 4y ago
      Could very well be. Especially in large companies, it's very hard to judge the importance of some roles and people. That's why there are always complains about how promotions work, no one has figured out how to value the work of an employee. Don't know much about Meta's HR department, maybe they're really good at that. But in the end we're all humans and never unbiased when we make those decisions.
• Tempest1981 4y ago
  Yeah, but you now have to pick up all the work they were doing.