I got laid off as a software engineer | Tech Layoffs 2024
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 พ.ค. 2024
- I am sharing my experience getting laid off as a software engineer. It's a rollercoaster of emotions. I hope my story brings comfort to those that are facing the same situation now. You are not alone.
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as anyone in tech, this is normal. keep moving forward and good luck to you. remember that all companies only see you as a number.
And that's why you don't do them overhours or study/practise their frameworks during your free time. Because on your lay off day none of that matters. But you have lost your own free time, you not spent time with your spouse, you have not spent time with your kids, you have not done those hobby projects that *you* would have been interested in and at the you don't get to keep that job anyways.
So if it's 5 o clock, lock your screen, leave your laptop on office desk, and walk home. Invest your time into people who care about you and things that matter for your personal life.
I was on a 12 mo contract with a Boeing subsidiary. Our regional manager came in town (normally manages us remotely) and we all were mildly curious as to why he was here.
About two days later I hear him and one of software testers a few cubicles down talking and sounds of shuffling. I assumed he was getting new furniture or something.
Ten minutes later I see the 12 year vet being escorted out of the building. He had the look of shock and and was visibly shaking. He managed a wave as he went by.
I was in shock too, I could'nt believe it!
As a contractor, we all knew when we were leaving. We knew, sometimes months in advance. The 12yr vet got no warning.
There were a bunch of us contractors, some teams got let go early. My contract went went long. We all got going-away parties, and were taken to dinner at company expense.
The 12yr vet got nothing.
In 43 years, I have been laid off three times and resigned once. Just got laid off after 18 years so that was a good run. Other jobs lasted 15 years and 9 years. I quickly realized that as a resource the employer decides what they want me to do. Over the years I have developed and maintained several products for my employers which I felt ownership of, so when asked to work on other projects it can be a bit of a downer.
I have worked in IT for 25 years, and you need to do more than just one thing in IT I have been in many fields and continued to stay relevant. You need to do more than just software development. Right now cyber security is where its at. Keep learning other parts of IT keep your knowledge up to date and keep gaining more experience in other fields of IT.
You're young, you will be fine. I have been at software engineering for 45 years, this is common. When I was your age there was no email. When they came to your desk and said we need to talk.
Whatever happens, I wish you the very best.
If your manager got blindsided by upper management cutting staff in her department, that's a bad sign for her. She may very well be next!
The one time my manager didn't have a clue we both got cut together in a big conference room with about thirty others and five people on vacation on the phone.
I'm been a frontline manager, and had people under me laid off and myself got laid off as well last year and this year respectively. The frontline managers are those who get all the sh*t from layoffs, and it is true very often we aren't nvolved in any of those decision making, and then later we have to counsel those who have been laid off... and sometimes laid off ourselves. Jia you and you will find a new job soon.
You're handling that better than I would! Lots of love. I wish you the absolute best in life. Remember, you can still reference them on your resume and just get another job.
You will have stiff competition in your career. Good luck, you’re going to need it.
I'm really sorry to hear this. Don't let 'em grind you down. :-)
been there, done that! If I can offer one piece of advice: don't look back & move one - get another job and carry on!
What a very calm person you are.....🇸🇬
It is very important to ensure that you don't hastily sign any paperwork the company would ask you to sign during the resignation process. Take it home and read it carefully. Ensure you don't get tricked into "resigning" because then you won't be eligible for unemployment compensation.
Also, you're always within your rights to consider a wrongful termination lawsuit. Your company knows this and wants to cut of your avenues for doing so by getting you to waive these rights by accepting a "termination package". If you were truly wrongfully terminated you would be entitled to a much larger settlement. Proceed with caution.
Well said.
Getting laid off is never an easy experience no matter how old or experienced you are. Keep working on your skills always. IT is a rough business and it goes up and down always but over time you will look back and see that you made a good living out of it. Try not to take the bad things that happen in IT personally. Just keep rowing down the stream and look after your health always.
Well first let me say I'm sorry that you experienced this. I think I worked for 3 companies in New York City before I decided to do my career as a consultant or contract worker. I found that taking work for a short amount of time suited me best. Either i'd get tired of their shit or they'd get tired of me getting tired of them. When clients were respectful and appreciative I went out of my way for them. My best work came when i was appreciated. You will find better situations and when you do cherish it. If you work hard and are consistent you can't go wrong. That's not saying it will fix every situation but at least you will know what works and do whatever you can despite the wheels that turn outside of your control. All the best for the adventures to come.
It's a tough market out there. Take anything you can for now until something come along. Good luck
Wish you the best, Euphie.
The ones who survive the layoff also end up having to do more work to make up for what everyone was doing. They'll gaslight you as for the reasons they made the decision but it's still their fault.
You nailed it. I’m in software industry more than 30 years and past 2 years are so tough. Many of my colleagues complain that they are so overloaded and exhausted, since some companies use this situation to put too much pressure and load too much work on employees. Don’t remember toughest time than these couple of years
oh man, I worked 12-16 hours for maybe 5 month. I'm just super tired, as are my coworkers.
@@slimjimjimslim5923 wow. Pay attention to your health and not to get burnt-out
First a reality check, the only job security you have in the software development business is the ability to find a new job.
After some 20+ years as a software engineer/developer I can tell you that the first layoff is always the roughest, it is often unexpected. However, after my first layoff, I cam to realize the signs so that subsequent layoffs were more expected.
Job hunting is alsays interesting. Always keep your resume up to date and always have a passive job hunt going.
Totally right. As a freelance i kept a view on ongoing proposals in case something break. I have seen 4 or 5 financial crisis,you have to be prepared and be flexible, learn new stuff and be ready for something else even lowering your revenue. Thats life.
@@sound-ur1bq thats BAD life
@@yugiohfanatic1964 i'm afraid that's real life
@rbaron7352 thanks for the advice! I have been told by my friends to always casually look for a job even when things are going well. Sadly, I didn't... now I've learned my lesson. 😂
@@eeeuphieee I know, me too. I was so busy my first 7 years trying to be a good worker, trying to learn as much as possible, trying to stand out. It was only last week as I was job hunting I realize I was segmented, specialized by my company. this means I had become too specialize in small set of skills. This is good for big tech since they use me like a cog and I become really fast and efficient. But this is bad for my career as I lack exp in other related skills so finding job, changing job/company require me to go pick up other skills on my own time.
I'm so sorry to hear. I got laid off around 4 times throughout my Mechanical Drafting and Telecom positions. For now, I did get laid off once again and I do plan to go for software engineering (did pass with a certification in software development, but learning more). Best of luck to you.
Good luck to you!
If they laid you off without any in advance notice, as in not just an one day notice but weeks in advance, then you're not obligated to pass down your work to someone else for crap. They can clean up their own mess and find someone else, because that's their problem since you're not an employee anymore. That's why when companies expect their employees to give them 2 weeks notice if they're leaving the company and company doesn't give their employees any 2 weeks notice, we're not obligated to give them any notice because this is how relationship works with people. If employees are treated like crap, then expect employees to treat the employers like crap too.
Always be strong and respectful and remember this could be a brand new start to something better.... one day at a time😊😊 Love and Blessings from California USA 🇺🇸 😊
The thing with layoffs is it is just business, it's not personal. Still sucks but don't blame yourself.
Hope you all the best! You're still young. That's the most important thing!
It is just a small bump
Young is always better than old!
Don’t give up and good luck
I wish all the luck in the world towards getting your next gig.
If you remain in a technology related job (especially as a software engineer), you should be prepared to face job changes every 3 to 8 years. Small companies come and go, and large companies go through internal reorganizations to meet changing priorities driven by government regulations, customer demand, or being involved in acquisitions.
I hope you find something soon. Good luck kiddo.
For the company to offer severance package, you're suspicion of cost-cutting is accurate. The major consulting firms are recommending the severance option to get around the WARN Act. Other major companies are still using PIPs to cost cut, so they don't have the publicity of the layoff and avoid severance. Usually, they target older workers with pension and sprinkle in some young employees to even out the stats. Similar to the Jack Welch methodology of 10% "low performers" per year, subsequently sank GE into ruin as this is NOT a good long-term method.
Good luck with your future endeavors. Things happen for a reason, do not lose heart. It is more likely the company finances were not looking good and they are trying to survive in the short term. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.
Things don't happen for a reason.
Won't be your last time, unfortunately. When companies run even the slightest cut in expenses IT is almost always the first to go. Stay positive. It wasn't about you. It was about them making a business decision. Move forward to your next job and keep broadening your skills. Expect this to happen again because it will, unfortunately.
the new breed of software engineers are technicians. Many don't even know that basic numerical methods, let alone algorithms. Find out what the market needs, then train yourself or go back to school to make yourself more marketable
There’s a demand for software /hardware engineers PLC in robotics , refining, manufacturing. Wish you the best 😊
Industrial controls are pretty different from software engineering positions, not just because of the ladder logic or PAC software often being visual rather than textual programming (with nothing like Git or coding libraries anywhere to be found), but also because a part of the logic is in physical space through the wire lead locations & machine actuators. A wrong input could break your parts or process with it only being reversible through physical maintenance, and it's not always obvious because the failure might be in a drift condition or an overheat over time.
Doing controls engineering IS well-supplemented by software engineering, but the software is only a third of the job. It's why a lot of the people doing it come from the world of electrical or mechanical (preferably a mix of the two, like robotics) rather than software. It's enough of a change that making the switch means you're probably starting your career over to go into this other field. Depending on your situation, that might still be worth it just to ensure your future, but it's background info to be aware of.
Yeah these positions are now in China 😂😅❤
Yeah - this stuff is done based on spreadsheets. Never take it personally. They just picked the number 5% and off they go...
your situation is same as i faced an year back....anyways good luck and all the best for your future goals!!!
As a software engineer, are you able to start your own company?And it's finding a job easy.Or do you wish you would have changed careers?
You handle it good. Just keep going forward. There are always demands for coders / software engineers. If you have an speciality area then it might be even more demand for your talent. Remember its usually there loss Not yours....
goodluck. Never give up 💪
Thank you! :D
I am 72 now and I was 'invited to seek my future elsewhere' almost 40 years ago. I was caught in the second round of RIFs and I had great respect for many of my fellow members of my graduating class. This separation was actually good for me; it freed me up to find a job that I actuality enjoyed much more.
Let me point out that a company going through RIFs is a sinking ship. The sooner you get out the better.
I have been a corporate man for about 25 years. This is the classic move to get her to do what they want and that she said no to. They remove her team so that they can now say something like “well, you don’t have a team now…” sort of thing.
i got that feeling too... 😢
@@eeeuphieee if your boss doesn’t know, you weren’t the target.
Hang in there. Hopefully a new job finds your way soon.
Section 174 of the U.S. tax code, as of 2022, requires companies to amortize ALL U.S. R&D salaries over 5 years. This has a profound effect on how many software engineers a company will keep. Especially since interest rates are high. Section 174 would not be a big issue, if interest rates were high, companies could simply borrow and expense the interest paid (fully). But now that interest rates are high, borrowing is prohibitive.
So instead of borrowing or keeping developers. Companies are opting to take profits and distribute them back to shareholders.
If they hired a developer, they would have to still pay taxes on 80% of your salary. So instead of getting double taxed on R&D, they decided to prop-up their stock prices with higher profits, and give bigger dividends.
The only way to stop this cycle, is to repeal section 174, and treat most R&D as what it really is, bug fixing and code maintenance.
I was unaware of the cause and effect...thanks for sharing it with me! :D
Section 174 and way, way, WAY too much AI hype.
While that tax code has had an impact so has a decrease in demand and an increase to show shareholder value. Without the ability to buyback shares companies might still be using their profit to invest in workers or reward them.
@@fadsa342 Wishful borderline naive thinking. Shareholders will always come first because companies literally exist to benefit their owners. Buybacks have nothing to do with that reality.
@@BTrain-is8ch The concept of shareholders come first is a fairly recent concept. It wasn't until the 80s that companies could buy back shares because it's a form of market manipulation. Prior to that much of the excess cash flow was invested back into employees who generally stayed for life, used pensions...Financial tools such as buybacks, temporary layoffs...are the result of a need to beat market expectations without actually being more efficient or increasing profits
Tech Industry is heavily impacted by booms & bust Economic cycles. If you want to play it safe in your Lifelong career, go work for a tech Job in Non-Profit or the Government sector. You won't make as much Money as FAANG, but you will be safe for the long term.
The Profit Sector is going to swing a lot due to Economic booms & bust cycles, interest rate changes, etc.
It’s absolutely cost cutting. Be assured it’s not anything you did or didn’t do. Good luck!
I also work as a software engineer, and this is why i never put all my eggs in one basket.
I always work freelance jobs on the side.
Always have a side hustle, thats smart!
Always do that!
and always be looking for the next job!
and always have a emergnecy fund of 1-2 years!!
This seems to imply that you are working all the time, which is not an enviable situation either.
@lungko7692 Freelance jobs aren't permanent, so you wouldn't be working all the time.
But even when i work a second full-time job, I only work it until I save the money I need, and then quit.
Things will turn around. Many have been through similar as have I.
I'm sorry this happened! Happy to see how I can help ❤
Your former tech lead might be a good future work contact. Sounds like you handled that well. Go on your own. Be an independent consultant. There is no legitimate dependence on anything in corporate. Have more than one income source. Control personal spending and expenses. Be confident.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with your abilities as a dev. Big companies tend to do layoffs at random. Ideally workers should be interchangeable and easily sourced, it is actually a disadvantage to be held hostage by a dependence on good engineers. Employees are just numbers on a spreadsheet.
Good luck to you
Thank you for posting this. Tech leads will assign tasks to look busy - no matter what. Not aware of whole team laid off. That is Haha Funny. And Typical She will get laid off later. NO need for Agile / Scrum team with NO team.
Wait, the CEO said in the final meeting with the team including those who were laid off that this cut was not related to cost cutting??!!! What other reasons can there be if they missed the financial targets for a few quarters??!!! The company monthly cash flow burn rate is higher than dollars coming in - what other reasons can there be??!!!
some firms cut the lowest 5% of performers each year regardless of financial condition
@@Damon_Mah its not performers its a contents who is liked by the bosses more
@@TH-camPL666 agree also true in general, in this case Euphie said her boss was unaware of the layoff so it was done by higher ups or computers and less personal bias in her case (could still be some)
she should continue to do networking when employed, so she will have more industry contacts if unemployed again. it’s always tough to be laid off, but she will succeed long-term with her resiliency and learning from this process
its good in someway to good thru this when you are young at least you know what to do when you are still young.. youth(young) you have time on hand to climb back up. been young also will give you a scene of lost when this happen, better to feel it in your youth to be prepare for it.. world has change and been layoff is too real and it has became normal issue in world. been layoff few time dont make you stronger, dont get it wrong. it just allow you to deal with things abittt easy. each time it happen it will still hurt, its not going to make you numb from been layoff.. the older you been layoff the more pain you will feel trust me, a new type of pain/worry/stress from been older in age... i been there, i was there and its never easy to handle it in any sharp or form.
Advice to all devs - when you get into a job. You have to make them need you more than you need them, then they have nowhere else to go. You can get another job, whereas they cannot get another brain with company specific information in it.
@judgewest2000 thanks for the advice, gonna remind myself of this every now and then once I get my next job
No. This is the opposite of what you should do. Always work as if today is your last day.
So always document your work, mentor others, share knowledge and empower your team.
Approaching work with this attitude not only grows your abilities but also give the appearance of ownership to upper management.
Who gets to stay and who gets laid off is completely up to upper management, so being visible to them is the most important to career growth and not being laid off.
You will be ready to move on and not be concerned about gap in employment.
@xFrozenxSnowx is absolutely right. Centralizing knowledge and trying to be "unfireable" is a terrible thing to do.
At the end of the day, unfortunately, good competent people are laid off every day, specially in a time o down economy, and the truth is that there's not much we, SWE, can do about it, except trying to be great everyday, keep studying and find another job.
@@jopmota well said.
Keeping knowledge to yourself may actually backfire when it comes time to decide who to let go and who to keep. As you pointed out it is rarely about competency.
Sharing knowledge and being open makes you well liked and is the single most important factor to a director-level's decision on who to keep.
Staying flexible to change also gives the impression this person can survive a reorg and adjust. So if your team no longer brings value to the business, you may become the one they keep around to move to a different team.
Hard to work with? Doesn't matter how good you are at writing code. You will be the first ones to be let go in a reorg
This is the harsh truth we SWEs have to adjust to or get phased out when coding is mostly done through AI and SWE become validators instead.
Some of the people on this chat have been fed the same cr*p that all lackies get fed in roles, especially at the start of their careers. Think about it, every company you do business with attempts a lock in, not just through captivity but incentives like a loyalty card or like Apple making only other Apple stuff work well.
Do be a good mentor, leader etc, and a lock in is for example outstanding work, not just knowledge hoarding. But you have to have that moment where when they're looking to make cutbacks and your name comes up they need to feel a cold shiver down their spine at the thought of it.
DON"T SIGN ANYTHING. CHECK WITH A LAWYER FIRST.
Your accent is cool you are from Singapore right! I'm Jonathan from El Salvador. Software developer too
Yeah, it sucks. I hope you get something.
Best wishes.
Have been laid off twice in the past 6 months, hopefully things get better soon or it might be time for a career change :)
My fiend is a truck driver. He makes $8-12k / month before tax. The same situation is with my friend a plumber in Chicago. Between $100 and 120k / year, before tax.
Normal in American culture, as long as they offer severance package
Scrum / Agile is horrible day after day. At least that is OVER.
The end of a job does not mean the end of the world. Hope you'll find or have already found a new job by now. Good luck.
try to explore more opportunities. good luck. I hope you will find a good job soon. what are your strengths and domains? If you know other spoken languages, you even can apply job in European or US.
goodluck to you man, I have faced 4 rounds of layoff in just 4 years working in tech consulting in one the American software company. The other company beside microsoft. It was crazy.
The first round was when I just joined less than 6 months later
second round involved alot of my other colleagues
I then left to join a partner doing the same thing.
And I was a team lead in the partner when my team got layoff for 2 rounds.
That was when I had it enough. Its super demoralizing to face layoff when you put in more than 100% in your work but because some guy in the American company decided he needed a big bonus so he can retire early at our expense.
Yeah, and greedy stakeholders, there is not money enough for them. Last year Salesforce fired some 10.000 just because of the profit in Q4 (as I remember) felt down from usual 20-22% to 14%
@DarkMeyer777 that's crazy...hope you have overcome all this!
@@eeeuphieee I'm a all good now, thankfully I managed to land a government role in my country doing a related job which pays much better though not really a fan of the job but hey, it pays the bills so why not.
Hope things turns out all the best for you. 🤞 Fingers crossed
must be a shitty place of work, when you only find out you have been laid off because you no longer have access to source control. Good luck!
You hv a great career ahead and more opportunities to come. Layoffs early career builds great resilience, and you will look back many years from now and realise it's a building block to greater things. Feel free to reach out and connect if you ever need help to reach out to anyone in the community. Meanwhile best of luck.
Honestly, when making cuts, it’s easier to look at people as numbers and so I do actually believe that your lead wasn’t even asked. It probably just came down to years in the industry plus salary plus some stupid metric that the c-suite think means “productivity”
God bless!
Good luck, you’ll land on your feet. I can tell. 😊
Are you a Singaporean?
Actually I think laying off people is something newer but in earlier days I saw many companies going down after a few years so developers had to look for new positions naturally.
Some of them end up as consultants and/or self employment, which rose them to another level. I'm also self employed for over 15 years. I define it like a circle, I have my root knowledge in the center of the circle from early days and all the other additional knowledge (whether it's mechanical engineering or electronic engineering) has to be connectable with the root knowledge - so I end up designing and building my own machinery and products and writing software for it.
cesium watches have been measured on board of flying aircrafts for more accuracy - i have 23:51 12.06.2024 - on my side you have posted your media file 1 month ago - i do not live in a native Englisch country - can you confirm.
If you are H1B then that is now a problem too as the clock will start ticking. I have not had a job since June 2023. At least you have severence.
Just subscribed
I do need a software engineer to help me. Wonder how could I contact you?
If they have done some shady things you can say I will continue work or inland revenue will be next day here. You will not believe how good this works.
Great work laws... In Europe you can't be just laid off over night. Except maybe for gross negligence. Otherwise there is anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months notice. The same goes for the employee if he wants to leave. In this way you can prepare and get things in order. I am always baffled when I hear about how people went to work in the morning and found out they were layedoff by the time they arrived. Crazy...
@@csuporj where in Europe, exactly? And were they full time employees or freelancers working for the company? And there is a huge difference if you still get payed but don’t have to work.
Good luck! My company also went through a restructuring and people were unexpected laid off and it's totally the "management" or they call themselves "leadership" team's decision. Team lead level people weren't involved or had any idea what's going on until people were suddenly gone.
Laid offs happen in every field your going to be fine ❤
I have been out also since February, welcome to the party I guess...
Hi Euphie!
Perhaps try with a bank or FI as they usually don’t have depth in tech skills though the work demand is there. Best of luck
In the old days "programmer" was an elite job. They'd be thinking twice before firing you because (a) you weren't so easily replaceable and (b) a good chance that you walked away with a lot of intimate knowledge of the system that can't be replaced at all.
So they dumbed down the job. The rise of languages like Ada, Java, Rust and even Python (hardware is so much faster now) can be explained this way. Add to that a car load of libraries (which you had to write yourself in the old days - even trivial things like sorting) and you could hire 10 lesser gods which were more easily replaceable. I'm afraid you are the victim of that now. But I don't think you'll have much trouble finding a new job in the current job market.
I haven't been a programmer in close to 40 years now, but I pick up the slack every now and then when people state "it's impossible" or say they can't do it in the required time frame.
In the old days there was just not as much supply of programmers, hardware was super expensive (say VAX) and companies had to make real money. Today paper money flows into the economy and indirectly feeds Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Today they hire a team of 15 to 50 people for what 3 well-paid, educated people could do if they were given authority. Creating a new Microservice skeleton that sits there and does nothing takes weeks to months in a lot of companies due to burocracy. It’s certainly not the problem of languages but of the distorted economy through a distorted financial and monetary system.
When in doubt, if you don't already know accounting, then study accounting. It complements your jobskills.
Aww. I’m sorry to hear that. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?
Become a hardware engineer.
sorry to hear about your layoff, you are so admirably positive after that news. hopefully you can take a break and find something else when you are ready. their communication was terrible, should not be done via email, and as you discovered in large companies sometimes people are selected by algorithms or upper management.
you sound like a Singaporean accent?
Likely
3:18 Yes this is the same exact thing at many companies. Only, say, director level would know about it and make the decision. Then this would be passed down to tech leads and others.
I could understand why tech leads are not consulted during layoff decision time. However what leads do too little of us to highlight or members to directors on a periodic basis
Highlight key members
Which country? What company?
is there a way to get jobs for US companies to start hiring US people instead of hiring people from other countries? US people are suffering and there are many tech US workers who are amazing and need jobs.
wow, same thing happened to me about 2 weeks ago.
😢
I know it's difficult when you get laid off, but it's important once you know that you are polite, thank the manager for the opportunity and wish them all the best. DO NOT BE ANGRY OR SEND AND NASTY EMAILS.
That’s how a lot of these places operate - your salary was used to supplement some exec’s bonus most likely
Must not be Tesla if the CEO was actually at the meeting.
ur company is small get used to it. try working in world wide company or a billion dollar company. then ur mettle will be tested as a true software engineer. no need to worry about layoff. ur worry is to how to insert the elephant in the needle hole. im done rdbms, im focusing on embedded.
Take care and learn from the lessons in the past job.
Perhaps you can look for an overseas job.
She wasn’t notified regarding her team cause she’s on the chopping block also.
😢
Good luck