11 ms·

Naturally, he is very disappointed but he should keep things in perspective. It's not that bad of situation to be in. You have 15 years of software development

Naturally, he is very disappointed but he should keep things in perspective. It's not that bad of situation to be in. You have 15 years of software development experience at Microsoft and there are going to be a lot of open doors. This could really be blessing in disguise.

s_kilk 12y ago
hmm, he is however up against every one of his ex-collegues who are in the same boat.
nanidin 12y ago
Yeah, I'm about to start a job search pretty soon. Not so nice that the market is being flooded with ex-MS people at the moment.
- chiph 12y ago
  Be willing to move. The hard part about this is convincing the HR department that you can self-relocate and don't want relo money.
  - akg_67 12y ago
    The most common objection I have heard in past six months during my job search. Another two objections that I have heard are "too much experience" and "your past salary was too much, we don't want to offer less but can't afford to pay you what you deserve."
    - pc86 12y ago
      You're don't necessarily deserve $n if the market can no longer bare it. There's nothing wrong with taking $(0.8n) if that's what the market has determined your skills are worth.
      - akg_67 12y ago
        I am open but companies are not :-(
      - nilkn 12y ago
        The problem is that the company is afraid that you'll bolt the second you get an offer at the n level again. They'd rather not hire you at all than hire you, invest in you, and then lose you just as quickly afterward.
        humanrebar 12y ago
        Offer a longer term contract then. The guy in the video was at his last job for 15 years. I'm sure he'd be OK with that assuming the benefits were good enough.
  - kken 12y ago
    I doubt that relo money plays any role in a decision for or against any candidate.
huhtenberg 12y ago
Except every interviewer will be wondering why did Microsoft let go someone with so much experience. What did Microsoft know that's not on the resume.
- bhrgunatha 12y ago
  I don't know the details of the Microsoft case, but my job was made redundant a number of years ago and I definitely was able to bounce back. There are lots of legal regulations around terminating employment and one of the easier legal ways is to remove a particular job or position. That's why generally people are not made redundant, their job, position or title is. It's a legal method of cutting costs by pruning the organisation. It's nothing to do with whether you are a worthy employee. Redundancies don't work that way. They are a practical, legal way of reducing numbers - payroll and staff. In the video, he's wondering why they couldn't simply find another position for him where he could apply his expertise. It's probably because they had to state his job is no longer viable and so the job (and the person occupying those jobs) are let go. If the company were to find other positions for their favorite employees, it opens all kinds of legal problems for HR.
- omnibrain 12y ago
  I don't think that's the case if he is one of 17k others.
  - SheepSlapper 12y ago
    Not to mention the fact that he worked there for 15 years. Successful companies don't make a habit of holding onto bad employees for that long :)
    - kamaal 12y ago
      That's just one way of looking at it. An acquaintance of mine who is also a HR guy once told me its in a person's best interest to keep hopping companies every ~3 years at least. Working at one company for a long time can be interpreted in many different ways. More like a person, who isn't excited about looking for new opportunities. Or a person who is just lazy to not make a move etc etc. Also if you stay at a company for a very long time, unless the company gives you a generous raise every year your salary will be way behind market standards. And if you are OK with your work being valued so little for so long, it only means two things either you just agree that your work or contributions aren't very important to be paid enough, or you are just lazy. And both are negative indicators. Its pointless to show loyalty that spans across 1.5 decades to a mega corporation where the boss two layers above probably doesn't even know your name, let alone the work you do. No wonder they don't blink twice before letting go some one. As much talented you might be, and how many algorithms you've memorized or how many nano seconds faster you can make a program run. I fail to understand why anybody would stay so long, its like setting yourself up for a big meltdown sooner or later.
badman_ting 12y ago
I hope this person is OK but that strikes me as unrealistic. Ageism is a real problem for software developers, but also that 15 years at MS could just as easily be viewed as a negative than a positive.
- spartango 12y ago
  That 15 years of experience at one of the world's top software companies is seen is a negative disgusts me. It seems disrespectful to judge an employee based on the negative perception of an entire company. For all the broken things within a company like Microsoft, I think it would be foolish to mark the company's talent pool as tainted. Perhaps this reflects a subtler form of the fanboy-ism that exists in technology culture today. The sentiment is that companies we dislike must have incompetent employees. Competent employees would surely build a better product, right? Obviously this is naive. Absolutely right, ageism plays into this as well. If you're hiring, keep in mind that, while fashionable, it is illegal to discriminate based on age. I wish this law was slightly easier to enforce.
  - buckbova 12y ago
    It's not unlike Steve Jobs thoughts on hiring Big Blue types in the early years. They were not the right culture fit. I don't think it's a perception of incompetence, but more of inflexibility. The thinking that a microsoft employee of 15 years is set in their ways.
Scuds 12y ago
yup. you're not hurting for .net / sql dev roles in the Puget sound area. Starbucks, Expedia, Nordstrom, and any number of other consulting firms and smaller dev shops. Of course - Node, Rails, Django, Spring etc wouldn't be bad to learn.
lightblade 12y ago
I heard that Microsoft is almost a direct feed into Google. Perhaps he should try there?

s_kilk 12y ago

hmm, he is however up against every one of his ex-collegues who are in the same boat.

nanidin 12y ago

Yeah, I'm about to start a job search pretty soon. Not so nice that the market is being flooded with ex-MS people at the moment.

chiph 12y ago
Be willing to move. The hard part about this is convincing the HR department that you can self-relocate and don't want relo money.
- akg_67 12y ago
  The most common objection I have heard in past six months during my job search. Another two objections that I have heard are "too much experience" and "your past salary was too much, we don't want to offer less but can't afford to pay you what you deserve."
  - pc86 12y ago
    You're don't necessarily deserve $n if the market can no longer bare it. There's nothing wrong with taking $(0.8n) if that's what the market has determined your skills are worth.
    - akg_67 12y ago
      I am open but companies are not :-(
    - nilkn 12y ago
      The problem is that the company is afraid that you'll bolt the second you get an offer at the n level again. They'd rather not hire you at all than hire you, invest in you, and then lose you just as quickly afterward.
      - humanrebar 12y ago
        Offer a longer term contract then. The guy in the video was at his last job for 15 years. I'm sure he'd be OK with that assuming the benefits were good enough.
- kken 12y ago
  I doubt that relo money plays any role in a decision for or against any candidate.

huhtenberg 12y ago

Except every interviewer will be wondering why did Microsoft let go someone with so much experience. What did Microsoft know that's not on the resume.

bhrgunatha 12y ago
I don't know the details of the Microsoft case, but my job was made redundant a number of years ago and I definitely was able to bounce back. There are lots of legal regulations around terminating employment and one of the easier legal ways is to remove a particular job or position. That's why generally people are not made redundant, their job, position or title is. It's a legal method of cutting costs by pruning the organisation. It's nothing to do with whether you are a worthy employee. Redundancies don't work that way. They are a practical, legal way of reducing numbers - payroll and staff. In the video, he's wondering why they couldn't simply find another position for him where he could apply his expertise. It's probably because they had to state his job is no longer viable and so the job (and the person occupying those jobs) are let go. If the company were to find other positions for their favorite employees, it opens all kinds of legal problems for HR.
omnibrain 12y ago
I don't think that's the case if he is one of 17k others.
- SheepSlapper 12y ago
  Not to mention the fact that he worked there for 15 years. Successful companies don't make a habit of holding onto bad employees for that long :)
  - kamaal 12y ago
    That's just one way of looking at it. An acquaintance of mine who is also a HR guy once told me its in a person's best interest to keep hopping companies every ~3 years at least. Working at one company for a long time can be interpreted in many different ways. More like a person, who isn't excited about looking for new opportunities. Or a person who is just lazy to not make a move etc etc. Also if you stay at a company for a very long time, unless the company gives you a generous raise every year your salary will be way behind market standards. And if you are OK with your work being valued so little for so long, it only means two things either you just agree that your work or contributions aren't very important to be paid enough, or you are just lazy. And both are negative indicators. Its pointless to show loyalty that spans across 1.5 decades to a mega corporation where the boss two layers above probably doesn't even know your name, let alone the work you do. No wonder they don't blink twice before letting go some one. As much talented you might be, and how many algorithms you've memorized or how many nano seconds faster you can make a program run. I fail to understand why anybody would stay so long, its like setting yourself up for a big meltdown sooner or later.

badman_ting 12y ago

I hope this person is OK but that strikes me as unrealistic. Ageism is a real problem for software developers, but also that 15 years at MS could just as easily be viewed as a negative than a positive.

spartango 12y ago
That 15 years of experience at one of the world's top software companies is seen is a negative disgusts me. It seems disrespectful to judge an employee based on the negative perception of an entire company. For all the broken things within a company like Microsoft, I think it would be foolish to mark the company's talent pool as tainted. Perhaps this reflects a subtler form of the fanboy-ism that exists in technology culture today. The sentiment is that companies we dislike must have incompetent employees. Competent employees would surely build a better product, right? Obviously this is naive. Absolutely right, ageism plays into this as well. If you're hiring, keep in mind that, while fashionable, it is illegal to discriminate based on age. I wish this law was slightly easier to enforce.
- buckbova 12y ago
  It's not unlike Steve Jobs thoughts on hiring Big Blue types in the early years. They were not the right culture fit. I don't think it's a perception of incompetence, but more of inflexibility. The thinking that a microsoft employee of 15 years is set in their ways.

Scuds 12y ago

yup. you're not hurting for .net / sql dev roles in the Puget sound area. Starbucks, Expedia, Nordstrom, and any number of other consulting firms and smaller dev shops. Of course - Node, Rails, Django, Spring etc wouldn't be bad to learn.

lightblade 12y ago

I heard that Microsoft is almost a direct feed into Google. Perhaps he should try there?