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This really sucks. I loved this job. I'm an EM and I was trying to hire more people because we're so busy with everything we needed to do. My teams products are

This really sucks. I loved this job. I'm an EM and I was trying to hire more people because we're so busy with everything we needed to do. My teams products are something like 95% profit. Really going to miss my team, they were wonderful to work with. Secretly hoping they'll have to rehire. I refuse to believe it was about AI. Coming from the inside, the bottleneck was never code. Seeing who is being laid off, especially on my team, it's the people who make things run.

tootie 5mo ago
In my experience, companies never value transparency. And it's doubly true for companies that boast about transparency. Obviously, it's within their authority to cut head count, but they've also obviously made some kind of major strategic shift either to cut costs or abandon some lines of business and they are not being upfront about it at all. The stock is up 111% over 12 months. They don't seem to be in any danger of crashing or collapsing.
- deleted 5mo ago
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- deleted 5mo ago
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brandon272 5mo ago
> Seeing who is being laid off, especially on my team, it's the people who make things run. As a Cloudflare customer, that's reassuring! .. not.
- headinthesky 5mo ago
  I know of 4 teams in Cloudflare One, who lost EMs, PMs and engineers in really critical connectivity systems. Our list of things we need to do is years long. Many of those are needed for reliability and scaling. They quietly stopped hiring months ago and I figured things were not good. My mistake was thinking my group would be a little safer being profit drivers and big deals...
  - aryehof 5mo ago
    Is it possible that the line of thinking really is that "agentic AI" will up for the capability shortfall? It seems to be the stated expectation, but I find it incredulous that management really would believe that?
    - shimman 5mo ago
      Do you really think management would come out and say "Hey we actually fucked up and don't really know what to do. Please don't punish us, here is a ritual sacrifice instead."? Of course they're going to downplay their own stupidity and use LLMs as a means to suppress terrible news.
    - headinthesky 5mo ago
      All of us who work with AI, and HN audience especially, know the gap between what can the agent do now, and "it fulfill the functions of my job" is something that won't be overcome anytime soon. Anyone who really believes that's the case is just showcasing their lack of knowledge Matthew Price calls it "an electric screwdriver". Does that sound like someone who has ever gotten deep on anything?
  - SlightlyLeftPad 5mo ago
    So Sorry, And I literally just moved all my stuff to cloudflare 2 weeks ago… if it means anything it was a great product.
j2jj 5mo ago
" Secretly hoping they'll have to rehire." They will just expect a lower wage rate. There's some tacit collusion going on here.. they are using LLMs as a vehicle to address the price that comes with the true shortage of software engineers. You seriously dont think they talk about this behind closed doors? of course they do.
- headinthesky 5mo ago
  Absolutely. My hope is selfish - the market is awful
  - kevin_thibedeau 5mo ago
    Do the world a favor and take your institutional knowledge out the door to enjoy greener pastures.
    - headinthesky 5mo ago
      The pasture is pretty crowded and full of shit. But thanks, friend. I appreciate it
      - keeda 5mo ago
        I've been laid off from every job I've held (and once I was even re-hired a month later!) so I know the feeling. There seem to be others here who are also impacted and I fear the overall trend will only continue, so I wrote up my thoughts on how to future-proof your job search. I do think the GP comment about institutional knowledge could be a key part of it. Hope this helps: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48067459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48067459
  - bloppe 5mo ago
    I promise you there are a ton of companies desperate to hire talent right now. It's hard on both sides of the market. Lots of noise, but there is demand for this supply. Unfortunately, that means personal connections are more valuable than they used to be, just to get the ball rolling.
rcatcher 5mo ago
> Seeing who is being laid off, especially on my team, it's the people who make things run. How did the company decide who to lay off? They didn't even ask EMs?
- gib444 5mo ago
  Companies have so much data on employees/products/customers etc these days the EM's opinion is just noise.
- 13a07e686ca5 5mo ago
  [dead]
- cfthrow96765 5mo ago
  My boss had no idea layoffs were even coming, so who knows how they picked.
- headinthesky 5mo ago
  I really don't know. My org now has 40+ engineers with 2 managers. Down from 6. I really don't know how they will do it. Each one of us were handling critical shit, and desperately needed more engineers. PMs made things run and they got hit even harder No one had any idea. My director got the same email
- pm90 5mo ago
  Almost 99% sure that They hired a consultant firm (MBB) that told them who to cut; this is pretty standard practice now at public tech corps. Especially if EMs weren’t in the loop. This looks like purely a margin improvement exercise thats hiding weaknesses in the company’s financial performance.
  - morpheuskafka 5mo ago
    I’m sure they don’t know what they are doing or necessarily care, but I’m still curious what the consultants even claim to be looking at to make the list? Job description, git activity, team level profitability, salary, etc?
kevincrane 5mo ago
> I was trying to hire more people because we're so busy with everything we needed to do That’s how it was at my previous company also. If you asked any engineer there they’d say “I’m incredibly busy, and I need more headcount to get through the things on my plate”. Then they laid off 40% of the company because AI had made everything so efficient shrug
- zelphirkalt 5mo ago
  I guess a company can coast on reputation for a while, before things come crashing down at least at parts of the company.
terpimost 5mo ago
Please point people you know to https://antithesis.com/company/careers/ https://antithesis.com/company/careers/ which is hiring EMs and deep tech people

tootie 5mo ago

In my experience, companies never value transparency. And it's doubly true for companies that boast about transparency. Obviously, it's within their authority to cut head count, but they've also obviously made some kind of major strategic shift either to cut costs or abandon some lines of business and they are not being upfront about it at all. The stock is up 111% over 12 months. They don't seem to be in any danger of crashing or collapsing.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

brandon272 5mo ago

> Seeing who is being laid off, especially on my team, it's the people who make things run. As a Cloudflare customer, that's reassuring! .. not.

headinthesky 5mo ago
I know of 4 teams in Cloudflare One, who lost EMs, PMs and engineers in really critical connectivity systems. Our list of things we need to do is years long. Many of those are needed for reliability and scaling. They quietly stopped hiring months ago and I figured things were not good. My mistake was thinking my group would be a little safer being profit drivers and big deals...
- aryehof 5mo ago
  Is it possible that the line of thinking really is that "agentic AI" will up for the capability shortfall? It seems to be the stated expectation, but I find it incredulous that management really would believe that?
  - shimman 5mo ago
    Do you really think management would come out and say "Hey we actually fucked up and don't really know what to do. Please don't punish us, here is a ritual sacrifice instead."? Of course they're going to downplay their own stupidity and use LLMs as a means to suppress terrible news.
  - headinthesky 5mo ago
    All of us who work with AI, and HN audience especially, know the gap between what can the agent do now, and "it fulfill the functions of my job" is something that won't be overcome anytime soon. Anyone who really believes that's the case is just showcasing their lack of knowledge Matthew Price calls it "an electric screwdriver". Does that sound like someone who has ever gotten deep on anything?
- SlightlyLeftPad 5mo ago
  So Sorry, And I literally just moved all my stuff to cloudflare 2 weeks ago… if it means anything it was a great product.

j2jj 5mo ago

" Secretly hoping they'll have to rehire." They will just expect a lower wage rate. There's some tacit collusion going on here.. they are using LLMs as a vehicle to address the price that comes with the true shortage of software engineers. You seriously dont think they talk about this behind closed doors? of course they do.

headinthesky 5mo ago
Absolutely. My hope is selfish - the market is awful
- kevin_thibedeau 5mo ago
  Do the world a favor and take your institutional knowledge out the door to enjoy greener pastures.
  - headinthesky 5mo ago
    The pasture is pretty crowded and full of shit. But thanks, friend. I appreciate it
    - keeda 5mo ago
      I've been laid off from every job I've held (and once I was even re-hired a month later!) so I know the feeling. There seem to be others here who are also impacted and I fear the overall trend will only continue, so I wrote up my thoughts on how to future-proof your job search. I do think the GP comment about institutional knowledge could be a key part of it. Hope this helps: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48067459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48067459
- bloppe 5mo ago
  I promise you there are a ton of companies desperate to hire talent right now. It's hard on both sides of the market. Lots of noise, but there is demand for this supply. Unfortunately, that means personal connections are more valuable than they used to be, just to get the ball rolling.

rcatcher 5mo ago

> Seeing who is being laid off, especially on my team, it's the people who make things run. How did the company decide who to lay off? They didn't even ask EMs?

gib444 5mo ago
Companies have so much data on employees/products/customers etc these days the EM's opinion is just noise.
13a07e686ca5 5mo ago
[dead]
cfthrow96765 5mo ago
My boss had no idea layoffs were even coming, so who knows how they picked.
headinthesky 5mo ago
I really don't know. My org now has 40+ engineers with 2 managers. Down from 6. I really don't know how they will do it. Each one of us were handling critical shit, and desperately needed more engineers. PMs made things run and they got hit even harder No one had any idea. My director got the same email
pm90 5mo ago
Almost 99% sure that They hired a consultant firm (MBB) that told them who to cut; this is pretty standard practice now at public tech corps. Especially if EMs weren’t in the loop. This looks like purely a margin improvement exercise thats hiding weaknesses in the company’s financial performance.
- morpheuskafka 5mo ago
  I’m sure they don’t know what they are doing or necessarily care, but I’m still curious what the consultants even claim to be looking at to make the list? Job description, git activity, team level profitability, salary, etc?

kevincrane 5mo ago

> I was trying to hire more people because we're so busy with everything we needed to do That’s how it was at my previous company also. If you asked any engineer there they’d say “I’m incredibly busy, and I need more headcount to get through the things on my plate”. Then they laid off 40% of the company because AI had made everything so efficient shrug

zelphirkalt 5mo ago
I guess a company can coast on reputation for a while, before things come crashing down at least at parts of the company.

terpimost 5mo ago

Please point people you know to https://antithesis.com/company/careers/ https://antithesis.com/company/careers/ which is hiring EMs and deep tech people