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I find this whole "the division in which you work is no longer profitable, so therefore we're laying off everyone who worked there" mentality that larger compan

I find this whole "the division in which you work is no longer profitable, so therefore we're laying off everyone who worked there" mentality that larger companies have is offensively short-sighted. As if the people who are working in those divisions can't adapt to something new that the company wants to grow into. The blog post even mentions that Amazon is lagging in AI, and so the smart move would be to move the people involved into the company's AI efforts. I find it very hard to believe that profits are so slim at Amazon that they simply cannot afford to migrate existing employees to something new with growth potential. Where I work, an admittedly very small company by comparison, there is an active effort to hire people that want to stick around for the long-haul. Sure there have been several missteps in product divisions, but as long as the employees involved are at least somewhat competent then there will always be a place for them to work on something. The benefit to doing this is that it creates a culture where everybody working there legitimately wants the company to succeed, and they're not thinking about it as merely a step in their own career path.

alephnerd 3y ago
I've been on the other side of these decisions. It's not the fault of the individual engineers, but there just aren't enough positions to fill. Leadership is accountable to shareholders, the board, and other stakeholders to ensure financial viability. It sucks, but it is what it is.
- bradleyjg 3y ago
  Which tech CEOs were fired for making the wrong call and overhiring? I don’t mind eye popping executive pay for exceptional performance, I mind that those positions have zero accountability.
  - spdy 3y ago
    Because they don't decide this on their own. A smart CEO gets board approval before going on a hiring spree, so afterwards, if the CFO shows a negative forecast, everyone can go, 'Oh, who could have seen this?' CEOs get fired if the board loses trust in their abilities.
  - okaram 3y ago
    I also think some of those CEOs should be fired, but I don't even think there was over hiring... It's more that demand went up by a lot suddenly, and then down by a lot suddenly.
    - bradleyjg 3y ago
      The weren’t able to integrate the hires in time to meet the demand spike before it went away. So it would have been optimal to not hire into it. Was that very difficult to see at the time? Sure, but what are those astronomical comp packages buying? Making very difficult calls correctly is their jobs.
  - underdeserver 3y ago
    In the eyes of the CEO and the shareholders, was it the wrong call? The CEO hires the employees assuming ZIRP continues. ZIRP ends. He fires all the extra employees, and gets to fire employees he doesn't need from other departments too along the way. Shareholders benefit either way, and the expendable ex-employees' well-being, visa status, healthcare, etc. is someone else's problem. Market is bad so the remaining employees can't really complain either.
    - bradleyjg 3y ago
      Meanwhile he spent a bunch of money on unnecessary employees. Foreseeing the end of zirp and how it will impact the business is part of the job.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- drewcoo 3y ago
  If someone has been "viable" for years and is suddenly not "viable" any longer, what happened? And why is some manager not being publicly flogged for letting that happen?
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    Macroeconomic conditions changed or demand for the product they work on wasn’t what it was expected. Tech companies are encouraged by investors to take risks which is why risk taking isn’t punished.
itake 3y ago
> As if the people who are working in those divisions can't adapt to something new that the company wants to grow into. Timing "we need this new team" with "We don't need this team" is a challenge. It is rare that both occur at the same time, or even the existing team's skill set matches with the new challenge. Shifting SREs to do machine learning is set up for failure.
- applecrazy 3y ago
  minor nit: there are no dedicated SREs at amazon. but your point stands otherwise
- magicloop 3y ago
  All tech companies I've been at have had this challenge of churn. As an engineer, the deeper the experience in a field, the more business value you can create (all else being equal). So when you switch speciality, value creation is going to take a hit. Some skills carry across directly, others take months/years to acquire. This is why companies can simultaneously be hiring teams and firing teams at the same time. If the team is doing something critical for the business strategy, they need to be on-point straight off the bat. That normally is achieved by buying start-ups or doing deep partnerships. (MSFT + OpenAI comes to mind).

alephnerd 3y ago

I've been on the other side of these decisions. It's not the fault of the individual engineers, but there just aren't enough positions to fill. Leadership is accountable to shareholders, the board, and other stakeholders to ensure financial viability. It sucks, but it is what it is.

bradleyjg 3y ago
Which tech CEOs were fired for making the wrong call and overhiring? I don’t mind eye popping executive pay for exceptional performance, I mind that those positions have zero accountability.
- spdy 3y ago
  Because they don't decide this on their own. A smart CEO gets board approval before going on a hiring spree, so afterwards, if the CFO shows a negative forecast, everyone can go, 'Oh, who could have seen this?' CEOs get fired if the board loses trust in their abilities.
- okaram 3y ago
  I also think some of those CEOs should be fired, but I don't even think there was over hiring... It's more that demand went up by a lot suddenly, and then down by a lot suddenly.
  - bradleyjg 3y ago
    The weren’t able to integrate the hires in time to meet the demand spike before it went away. So it would have been optimal to not hire into it. Was that very difficult to see at the time? Sure, but what are those astronomical comp packages buying? Making very difficult calls correctly is their jobs.
- underdeserver 3y ago
  In the eyes of the CEO and the shareholders, was it the wrong call? The CEO hires the employees assuming ZIRP continues. ZIRP ends. He fires all the extra employees, and gets to fire employees he doesn't need from other departments too along the way. Shareholders benefit either way, and the expendable ex-employees' well-being, visa status, healthcare, etc. is someone else's problem. Market is bad so the remaining employees can't really complain either.
  - bradleyjg 3y ago
    Meanwhile he spent a bunch of money on unnecessary employees. Foreseeing the end of zirp and how it will impact the business is part of the job.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
drewcoo 3y ago
If someone has been "viable" for years and is suddenly not "viable" any longer, what happened? And why is some manager not being publicly flogged for letting that happen?
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  Macroeconomic conditions changed or demand for the product they work on wasn’t what it was expected. Tech companies are encouraged by investors to take risks which is why risk taking isn’t punished.

itake 3y ago

> As if the people who are working in those divisions can't adapt to something new that the company wants to grow into. Timing "we need this new team" with "We don't need this team" is a challenge. It is rare that both occur at the same time, or even the existing team's skill set matches with the new challenge. Shifting SREs to do machine learning is set up for failure.

applecrazy 3y ago
minor nit: there are no dedicated SREs at amazon. but your point stands otherwise
magicloop 3y ago
All tech companies I've been at have had this challenge of churn. As an engineer, the deeper the experience in a field, the more business value you can create (all else being equal). So when you switch speciality, value creation is going to take a hit. Some skills carry across directly, others take months/years to acquire. This is why companies can simultaneously be hiring teams and firing teams at the same time. If the team is doing something critical for the business strategy, they need to be on-point straight off the bat. That normally is achieved by buying start-ups or doing deep partnerships. (MSFT + OpenAI comes to mind).