Business Big Tech Layoffs Megathread - Techbros... we got too cocky...

Since my previous thread kinda-sorta turned into a soft megathread, and the tech layoffs will continue until morale improves, I think it's better to group them all together.

For those who want a QRD:

Just this week we've had these going on:

https://www.theverge.com/24048636/ebay-layoffs-1000-employees-january-2024

https://arstechnica.com/google/2024/01/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-promises-another-year-of-google-layoffs/

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/24/tech/sap-restructuring-ai-jobs-intl-hnk/index.html

But it's not just Big Tech, the vidya industry is also cleaning house bigly:

https://www.brokentoys.org/ludum-mortuus-est/

All in all, rough seas ahead for the techbros.

 

[Beavis]

I just steal from my school’s student store.

 

[GunCar Gary]

They’re also all in the union

bold of you to assume they’d get any work done even if they were in the office

 

[Kane Lives]

View attachment 6622653

https://www.businessinsider.com/intel-employee-morale-perks-cost-cutting-struggles-2024-11

https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2024/11/intel-brings-back-workers-free-coffee-seeking-to-stem-declining-morale.html

"Wagie... we are bringing back free coffee! this means that we care about you! come back to your cagie!"

My shitty third world IT company manages to have free coffee on demand even during COVID. What's Intel's excuse?

 

[FedPostalService]

If your company doesn’t give you tea or coffee then leave immediately.

 

[Disc]

If your company doesn’t give you tea or coffee then leave immediately.

Yeah, for all my eyerolling at the WFH hardliners, the benefits of having people in office assume they'll be relatively well-cared for.

There's a healthy medium between Cubicuck and Uni Campus for Kidults. Even as someone who doesn't take coffee, not having some form of refreshments at the office should be a sign that this is not a place that respects you.

 

[1Tonka_Truck]

It's mind-blowing to see how some some companies, even to this day, list "free coffee, juice and snacks" as a benefit. This is the bare minimum you should provide for your employees

I worked at a company where 90% of the employees worked in the field every day. If we were in the office, we weren't making the company any money. They still had a nook with 2 coffee pots, an array of snacks, and a fridge full of drinks.

 

[Ahriman]

If your company doesn’t give you tea or coffee then leave immediately.

Or worse, when your company used to have fridges full of drinks (water bottles, coca-cola, etc), tea and snacks, but then they start taking those away...

That's how you know the company is scraping the bottom of the barrel for profit.

That kind of penny-pinching is a massive red flag.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

This is not based on anything scientific, it’s just pure gut feel, which is almost always wrong.

When it comes time to make these cuts, there's often little rhyme or reason in the tech industry - even if bigger companies get rid of the dead weight that's inherent in any such large business.

The wrong people are being laid off.

At the last IT job I had before switching fields, the first person to be let go was the one with the most seniority solely because he wasn't assigned to a project when they decided to start making more cuts. Later, during my internship in my current field, i read a book whose author stated that 50% of the time the wrong person ends up being fired, laid off, etc. because it's more about economics or corporate politics.

From what I hear from one of my former IT coworkers, the industry has slowly become a dumpster fire for non-imports (H1-Bs). None of these tech layoffs are surprising - especially with today's people wanting to work as little as possible for as much pay as they can get.

 

[DavidS877]

At the last IT job I had before switching fields, the first person to be let go was the one with the most seniority solely because he wasn't assigned to a project when they decided to start making more cuts. Later, during my internship in my current field, i read a book whose author stated that 50% of the time the wrong person ends up being fired, laid off, etc. because it's more about economics or corporate politics.

I work for a consulting company(more or less) And I'm one of the highest salary people who aren't management. And I often have the least billable hours. Looking at that I'd be the first out the door.

Luckily management realizes my value as a fixer. Got a question no one knows, ask Dave. Have some random technical question on how to write this esoteric code, ask Dave. Need me to sit and write code for 8 hours, sure, I can do that but for the boring stuff I'm not much cheaper than the more junior guys. But if you hit a roadblock I'm the one they want to keep around.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

I've always found it bizarre for a company to waste money on free drinks and snacks besides just providing a barebones coffee pot and basic supplies (grounds, filters, cups, etc.). Maybe I'm just a bitter old cynic but I'd much rather have the extra twenty bucks a month on my paycheck than have them spend that on a daily snack for me to munch on at my desk. The snacks usually sucked anyway.

Of course, we all know they offer this empty gesture of a "perk" because it's substantially cheaper than increasing salaries across the board.

Agreed on snacks, but when it comes to hot drinks, your options are pretty limited for office drone. You either bring in a thermos of something nice and have a limited suppy, bring in equipment and deal with someone else inevitable fouling it or having to wait in line for your own damned machine (Or have IT hate you as you put it on your desk and give them the space heater problem all over again), or you pay out the ass for something from a local cafe.

Luckily management realizes my value as a fixer.

This is one of the reasons why if I do happen to lose my current job, I'm going back to contract consulting. The management in that shit actually has to be more competent than the office middle management drones, because they have a customer to please, and therefore can value more than just book skills and performance improvement plans. If they're closing deals and getting effective billable hours and more RFP opportunities from clients because they got this weird edgecase guy floating in their back pocket, then its pats on the backs and keep it up.

 

[FedPostalService]

Later, during my internship in my current field, i read a book whose author stated that 50% of the time the wrong person ends up being fired, laid off, etc. because it's more about economics or corporate politics.

As an austist like everyone else in this thread I can’t stress how important it is to get your face known by the higher ups. It’s not enough to be good at your job, you have to be seen to be good at your job and not in an annoying or threatening to your superiors way.

You have to dance a bit of the corporate dance to keep yourself safe and get ahead.

Young me fucked up thinking I could just be talented and get along. Luckily I’m good at pretending to be a social party guy (when I’d really much rather be at home playing vidya) but if you’re not, volunteer for random stuff and just say “hello” to people when you bump into them. You’d be amazed at how that will turn your career around.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

As an austist like everyone else in this thread I can’t stress how important it is to get your face known by the higher ups. It’s not enough to be good at your job, you have to be seen to be good at your job and not in an annoying or threatening to your superiors way.

You have to dance a bit of the corporate dance to keep yourself safe and get ahead.

Young me fucked up thinking I could just be talented and get along. Luckily I’m good at pretending to be a social party guy (when I’d really much rather be at home playing vidya) but if you’re not, volunteer for random stuff and just say “hello” to people when you bump into them. You’d be amazed at how that will turn your career around.

Yup. I still come in for 'important' meetings, some of the morning scrums and department coffee events, 5/10/15 year celebrations, etc. Talked with VP's and department heads, good stuff. Helps that you're mostly interacting with them in predefined positive events as well, and not when they're mad because the offshore team just accidentally'd 20k of microsoft chargers by pretending they had approval for extra device spinups, when they didn't.

 

[Ahriman]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/09/technology/tech-employee-activism-trump.html

https://x.com/sundarpichai/status/1854207788290850888

You love to see it.

 

[Back me up!]

Well if its one thing high caste Indians know how to do is eat shit and smile for the higher ups.

 

[Peaches the Wonder Cat]

Microsoft was one of the biggest donors to the Harris campaign scam.

 

[Ahriman]

https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/09/mozilla-lays-off-30-of-its-nonprofit-arm/

 

[sadrefrigerator]

Amazon is the worst employer in tech. Average tenure in tech companies is 2-4 years because your initial stock grant is given over 4 years and after it runs out, your total comp drops significantly. For senior and higher levels, a majority of your comp is in stock. Amazon has worse retention than that.

This is mainly because Amazon have a very open secret of required ura (unregrettable attrition). This managers are required to fire 5% of employees a year. This leads to situation like hire to fire, where an employee is hired and put on pip within 4 months. If the managers don't play along, they are the ones that get pipped. To survive at Amazon you have to be a sociopath. Everything is strictly political and the weak will be backstabbed and pushed out.

So noone should be surprised when Amazon starts enforcing shit like full RTO. They were the ones giving employees free bananas while charging employees for drinks, while their competitors all provided free meals.

I've always found it bizarre for a company to waste money on free drinks and snacks besides just providing a barebones coffee pot and basic supplies (grounds, filters, cups, etc.). Maybe I'm just a bitter old cynic but I'd much rather have the extra twenty bucks a month on my paycheck than have them spend that on a daily snack for me to munch on at my desk. The snacks usually sucked anyway.

Of course, we all know they offer this empty gesture of a "perk" because it's substantially cheaper than increasing salaries across the board.

Would you really want 20 dollars a month over unlimited free drinks, 100 dollars a month over free meals? The companies giving free lunch to employees were all located in shithole metropolitan extremely high col areas, where fast food and value meals can not exist. Employees would have to spend over 20 dollars a day for lunch minimum if they paid for their own food. Its much cheaper overall for companies to hire catering or build their own cafeterias (which also come with a tax benefit). Even if you were to add that money to salary in an job offers it would be insignificant. The perks did much more to make attractive offers.

 

[moocow]

Would you really want 20 dollars a month over unlimited free drinks, 100 dollars a month over free meals?

Yes, I would. I can pack my own lunch.

 

[The Hardest R]

As an austist like everyone else in this thread I can’t stress how important it is to get your face known by the higher ups. It’s not enough to be good at your job, you have to be seen to be good at your job and not in an annoying or threatening to your superiors way.

Spot on. I’ve been banging the networking drum here for a while because in this increasingly precarious environment, you have to be a known and valuable entity. The guy who keeps his head down and does his work ends up on the chopping block because they just assume we’re all interchangeable cogs and a guy who does his job well and goes home is considered replaceable. Being quiet will just get you fucked with and eventually fucked over. You gotta make yourself more visible. And of course, build up your industry contacts. Be visible to recruiters and headhunters too. Is it fair or is it right? Of course not but that’s the corporate environment in current year plus nine and it ain’t changing anytime soon.

 

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

If AI applying for jobs makes every recruiment agency bankrupt and all agents left destitute to starve in a gutter, then I for one welcome our new AI overlords.

It's about time scumsucking agents got their lazy, useless, job-blocking arses left hung out to dry.

As a former agency recruiter I endorse this statement entirely. The whole industry has no reason to exist. I at least hope I helped some candidates with prep.