Most of the laid-off positions, assuming these layoffs do take place, probably won't be developers. During temporary crises, companies prefer to lay off the workers whose positions will be easiest to hire back after the crisis has ended. Engineering positions tend to be hard to hire for, so engineers are usually hit less hard by these types of layoffs than other roles.
But your mileage may vary: companies also understand that one big cut is better for morale than lots of small ones. The current crisis is temporary but might last a long time, so a company that thinks they might have to fire engineers eventually, could plausibly pull forward that decision in an attempt to save the business.
When it seems like companies don't complain enough how scarce it is to find hirable talent, I wonder what the details are on their engineering layoffs. Why not just move them to a different team? Why not just keep work on tech debt efforts? Laying them off seems like a terrible long term decision. I'm assuming these lay offs are not some guise to hide that they're getting rid of their low performing engineers.
Every-time a PR comes out like this I see this sort of comment. Is there any evidence that layoffs are engineering based? I always assume the first to go are marketing/admin/etc rather than developers.
The reason I usually hear: Good engineers almost always have jobs and usually aren't looking to change. When large layoff events happen good and bad engineers lose their jobs. This gives other companies an opportunity to recruit better talent with less effort than usual and, if they're really lucky, recruit entire teams that have worked together before.
When the company had financial trouble though, they fired all the middle managers and kept the engineers
The truth is that most layoffs don't work like that, unfortunately. Members of the management class will generally try to protect their own, and they see engineers as mere blue-collar workers, no matter how skilled or qualified those engineers are. Yes, even software engineers.
All of the various layoffs I’ve been aware of have included a decent number of engineers. Often it is changing direction or giving up on certain products, so entire product teams get let go. Plus, we’re usually the most expensive.
Layoffs may not even be a bad thing if job mobility is high. Startups lay off a lot of people who have bullshitted their way into their position, members of low ROI teams who can't be easily be transferred somewhere else, quiet quitters, etc. On the other hand struggling to find a job as an experienced engineer is usually a symptom of a sick economy.
A lot of great engineers get laid off simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially in bigger orgs. When it comes time to cut down expenses, the more experienced (and hence higher compensated) engineers are usually prime targets to get axed. Its really stupid and short term thinking, but there is a reason why it happens.
OTOH looks like your org actually benefited tremendously from having those experienced engineers, so in a morbid way their being laid off turned out to be good for everyone involved.
It's surprising to me to continue seeing this myth that engineers are spared in most of these layoffs. That may be true in some cases, but most of the large tech layoffs have included plenty of software developers.
To expand on this point, when you hear layoffs you probably immediately think about the engineers given the demographic of this site and how you wouldn't working for a company like this. However, layoffs have a tendency to hit sales and production harder than the technical team. Production and sales usually outnumber engineers to begin with and has a higher turnover rate due to the nature of the work.
Do note that laid off engineers are typically from teams that have overhired and where we don't have plans to grow, as well as engineers who did not get a good rating and are less promising. It is sad nevertheless.
One concern with that would be that good engineers would usually see this on the horizon and leave for better / more prospective jobs in advance. So those who stayed until mass layoffs might not be the top talent that used to work at the company before when it was doing better.
I am not sure it applies in this case as this was quite sudden and we don't have enough visibility to see how many red flags were there few months / a year ago. In this case it seems to have been so sudden that lots of great people have been caught off guard.
But your mileage may vary: companies also understand that one big cut is better for morale than lots of small ones. The current crisis is temporary but might last a long time, so a company that thinks they might have to fire engineers eventually, could plausibly pull forward that decision in an attempt to save the business.
Times are hard all around.
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