Tech layoffs of 2022/2023

[Paul der Krake]

Amazon: 18,000
Meta: 11,000
Microsoft: 11,000
Salesforce: 9,000
Cisco: 4,000
Twitter: 3,700
Crypto.com: 2,000
Coinbase: 2,000
Carvana: 1,500
Snap: 1,300
Doordash: 1,200
Stripe: 1,000
Shopify: 1,000
Redfin: 850

...the list goes on and on.

Obviously missing from the list as of writing: Google, Apple, Netflix. Are we done clenching soon? Is this the end of 26 year old engineers with 400k total comp?

Let's hear everyone's predictions.

[bryan995]

/popcorn

Another big wave coming to amazon tomorrow.
I think at least 1 more large wave for most companies.

And then there is this prediction ...
https://www.teamblind.com/post/The-real-reason-behind-layoffs-in-big-tech-Go3FX0GU

[lutorm]

According to Wikipedia, MSFT has 220,000 employees, Meta 75,000. It's not like they're going out of business. And I'd wager most of the people being let go aren't the ones making 400k either.

A friend of mine who were trying to hire people during 2008 said it actually got a lot harder, companies were dumping the low performers so there was a huge pool of people you didn't want to hire diluting your chances of finding the good ones.

[Paul der Krake]

And then there is this prediction ...
https://www.teamblind.com/post/The-real-reason-behind-layoffs-in-big-tech-Go3FX0GU

I don't buy that at all, especially not at the top of the market for eng.

The simplest explanation is likely the best one: money isn't free anymore, and growth stonks must compete with 4.5% risk-free T-bills. Growth isn't as important anymore, unit economics and operational efficiency is the name of the game.

My company did layoffs recently and the leadership was quite candid about this. The message was "look we've never been profitable, some of it by choice but some of it because we we prioritized growth. If you want your stock to be worth something in this environment, we need to nail the basics. LFG".

[Samuel]

According to Wikipedia, MSFT has 220,000 employees, Meta 75,000. It's not like they're going out of business. And I'd wager most of the people being let go aren't the ones making 400k either.

Microsoft is reducing headcount by 5% after increasing it 36% since the start of the pandemic. Plenty to nip and tuck.

[Ron Scott]

Most techs are managing a tough economy pretty well IMO. I wouldn’t read too much into the minuscule #s of layoffs cited above. (Amazon’s # = ~1.2% of their headcount FWIW)

Some stocks are on sale if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

[sailinlight]

My company has laid off about 5-10% of the workforce at the start of every recession. They almost never fire people for any reason outside these events, so I think it's just a matter of saying "sorry the economy made me do it" instead of "you're not pulling your weight around here, we're going to have to let you go". It's usually the people that you think "what does this person do and why are they here?".

[Ron Scott]

My company has laid off about 5-10% of the workforce at the start of every recession. They almost never fire people for any reason outside these events, so I think it's just a matter of saying "sorry the economy made me do it" instead of "you're not pulling your weight around here, we're going to have to let you go". It's usually the people that you think "what does this person do and why are they here?".

The most annoying and demotivating thing for hard-working people at a company is watching loafers hang on year after year. Fire ‘em!

[scottnews]

According to Wikipedia, MSFT has 220,000 employees, Meta 75,000. It's not like they're going out of business. And I'd wager most of the people being let go aren't the ones making 400k either.

Microsoft is reducing headcount by 5% after increasing it 36% since the start of the pandemic. Plenty to nip and tuck.

This 100%
There are fewer headlines about all the hiring tech did and the crazy proffits durring the pandemic.

Amazon gross profit for the quarter ending September 30, 2022 was $56.833B, a 18.69% increase year-over-year.
Amazon gross profit for the twelve months ending September 30, 2022 was $216.165B, a 14.27% increase year-over-year.
Amazon annual gross profit for 2021 was $197.478B, a 29.28% increase from 2020.
Amazon annual gross profit for 2020 was $152.757B, a 32.85% increase from 2019.
Amazon annual gross profit for 2019 was $114.986B, a 22.68% increase from 2018.

[seattlecyclone]

And then there is this prediction ...
https://www.teamblind.com/post/The-real-reason-behind-layoffs-in-big-tech-Go3FX0GU

I don't buy that at all, especially not at the top of the market for eng.

The simplest explanation is likely the best one: money isn't free anymore, and growth stonks must compete with 4.5% risk-free T-bills. Growth isn't as important anymore, unit economics and operational efficiency is the name of the game.

My company did layoffs recently and the leadership was quite candid about this. The message was "look we've never been profitable, some of it by choice but some of it because we we prioritized growth. If you want your stock to be worth something in this environment, we need to nail the basics. LFG".

I think you're exactly right. My employer just furloughed half the engineers (myself included) because the changing investment environment made management worry that the next round of capital might not be forthcoming when it would have been needed given the prior salary expense.

Most techs are managing a tough economy pretty well IMO. I wouldn’t read too much into the minuscule #s of layoffs cited above. (Amazon’s # = ~1.2% of their headcount FWIW)

In the case of Amazon the bulk of their staff works in the warehouses. Those teams have no need to do layoffs (and are in fact still hiring) because people quit on their own all the dang time. The layoffs should be considered in the context of their much smaller corporate headcount and make up a more significant percentage there.

[former player]

In the case of Amazon the bulk of their staff works in the warehouses. Those teams have no need to do layoffs (and are in fact still hiring) because people quit on their own all the dang time. The layoffs should be considered in the context of their much smaller corporate headcount and make up a more significant percentage there.

That's not quite right: some Amazon warehouses are closing altogether in a rationalisation programme (usually closing smaller older places in favour of newer bigger ones) so some warehouse staff are losing jobs they would rather keep.

[Paul der Krake]

My employer just furloughed half the engineers (myself included) because the changing investment environment made management worry that the next round of capital might not be forthcoming when it would have been needed given the prior salary expense.

Well that's super interesting, I've never heard of engineer furloughs in the private sector. It's usually for government employees while budget fights are ongoing. What are the mechanics like in your case? Are you eligible for unemployment, do you expect to come back and/or receive back pay eventually?

[Ron Scott]

Most techs are managing a tough economy pretty well IMO. I wouldn’t read too much into the minuscule #s of layoffs cited above. (Amazon’s # = ~1.2% of their headcount FWIW)

In the case of Amazon the bulk of their staff works in the warehouses. Those teams have no need to do layoffs (and are in fact still hiring) because people quit on their own all the dang time. The layoffs should be considered in the context of their much smaller corporate headcount and make up a more significant percentage there.
[/quote]

Likely true but the numbers are still relevant. All companies need to adjust to inflation and the cost of money. Tech is no different.

The future for techies is bright.

[seattlecyclone]

My employer just furloughed half the engineers (myself included) because the changing investment environment made management worry that the next round of capital might not be forthcoming when it would have been needed given the prior salary expense.

Well that's super interesting, I've never heard of engineer furloughs in the private sector. It's usually for government employees while budget fights are ongoing. What are the mechanics like in your case? Are you eligible for unemployment, do you expect to come back and/or receive back pay eventually?

I am eligible for unemployment during the furlough. The company is paying for health insurance during this time and equity vesting continues uninterrupted. I expect no back pay since the stated purpose of this move is cost reduction, not merely a cost delay. They've estimated a two-month duration, but cautioned that it could last more or less time based on various factors. A permanent loss of my job is possible if the situation doesn't improve after a number of months. They also offered a severance package for anyone who wasn't interested in waiting around. From what I hear, a slim majority of my affected colleagues took it.

I am of course taking the time to explore other options. My last job search took a while because I was limiting myself to opportunities with solid missions I could get behind (particularly in climate tech). I expect a similar—if not longer—timeline this time around. I figure odds are good my current employer calls me back to work before I get a better offer. If not, so be it. I'm already FI. I did raise the possibility of returning part-time to our CTO and he seemed very receptive to the idea. The team is a bit lacking on leadership/experience at the moment as the furlough overwhelmingly targeted those likely to have higher salaries. I had been thinking of asking for part-time before the furlough anyway to get better work/life balance, but such arrangements are so rarely approved in this industry. Nothing like financial pressure to force consideration of something they would be unlikely to approve otherwise!

[mizzourah2006]

My friend at Google said they just laid off 12k. Said he got an email about it at 2 AM.

[maizefolk]

Came here to post the same news about google.

Sounds like the employees getting cut are receiving close to 6 months of pay (two months notice before being laid off, four months of severance), which is better than the folks at twitter got. But still has to be gut wrenching news to wake up to for those hit by it.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/20/tech/google-job-cuts/index.html

[mathlete]

Good news is that monthly job growth is still strong in the face of rate hikes.

[Paper Chaser]

Good news is that monthly job growth is still strong in the face of rate hikes.

But which jobs? A bunch of openings in the low paying service sector isn't going to be much help to tech workers used to making six figures.

And really, the strong job market just increases the likelihood of further rate hikes or longer periods before rates might be dropped again.

[weebs]

I am eligible for unemployment during the furlough. The company is paying for health insurance during this time and equity vesting continues uninterrupted.

That's a good deal, especially since you're already FI.  Likewise for the potential part-time work.  We've hit our number, so I wouldn't mind a two month furlough under those conditions during the middle of ski season.  :-)

[FINate]

Good news is that monthly job growth is still strong in the face of rate hikes.

But which jobs? A bunch of openings in the low paying service sector isn't going to be much help to tech workers used to making six figures.

And really, the strong job market just increases the likelihood of further rate hikes or longer periods before rates might be dropped again.

There's a large middle ground between tech and low paying service jobs.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pivoting-tech-seemed-thrilling-2018-heres-what-has-taken-anders/

IMO, tech sucking up gobs of talent isn't good for the economy. The current layoffs seem like a necessary rebalance after CEOs overhired and overpaid during the pandemic.

[GuitarStv]

My company posted pretty good earnings/profits last year . . . and then followed it up with a round of layoffs 'because of the coming recession'.  But the layoffs were a little weird.  Usually layoffs target mostly dead weight, but we lost several good people.

[mizzourah2006]

Good news is that monthly job growth is still strong in the face of rate hikes.

But which jobs? A bunch of openings in the low paying service sector isn't going to be much help to tech workers used to making six figures.

And really, the strong job market just increases the likelihood of further rate hikes or longer periods before rates might be dropped again.

There's a large middle ground between tech and low paying service jobs.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pivoting-tech-seemed-thrilling-2018-heres-what-has-taken-anders/

IMO, tech sucking up gobs of talent isn't good for the economy. The current layoffs seem like a necessary rebalance after CEOs overhired and overpaid during the pandemic.

Yup, between 2021-2022 I knew about 15-20 people that had worked at other companies or smaller consulting firms or the government that all went to Google, Amazon, and Meta. From my small consulting firm alone Amazon took 5 people within a year.

[Paper Chaser]

Good news is that monthly job growth is still strong in the face of rate hikes.

But which jobs? A bunch of openings in the low paying service sector isn't going to be much help to tech workers used to making six figures.

And really, the strong job market just increases the likelihood of further rate hikes or longer periods before rates might be dropped again.

There's a large middle ground between tech and low paying service jobs.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pivoting-tech-seemed-thrilling-2018-heres-what-has-taken-anders/

IMO, tech sucking up gobs of talent isn't good for the economy. The current layoffs seem like a necessary rebalance after CEOs overhired and overpaid during the pandemic.

Agreed. My central point was that if the job openings don't align with the skills and salaries of the people being laid off, then it may not matter. Tons of jobs in hospitality probably don't appeal to tech workers. Tons of jobs in the medical field don't align with the skills of untrained service workers. So simply looking at job openings may not be an indicator of actual economic health.

Here's some data about which sectors of the economy have the most openings right now:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/872834/monthly-job-openings-in-the-united-states-by-industry/

[314159]

Came here to say that my employer, a smallish startup which shall remain nameless, announced layoffs today of about 25% of the company. My role was not cut, but the mood on the all-company zoom call was, as you can imagine, very low.

It's tough because I, and at least some of my coworkers, had thought we were in a good position in terms of funding. But leadership believes we need to make that funding last longer than initially planned, because it's now expected to be a few years before we can do another round of fundraising.

[weebs]

Came here to say that my employer, a smallish startup which shall remain nameless, announced layoffs today of about 25% of the company. My role was not cut, but the mood on the all-company zoom call was, as you can imagine, very low.

It's tough because I, and at least some of my coworkers, had thought we were in a good position in terms of funding. But leadership believes we need to make that funding last longer than initially planned, because it's now expected to be a few years before we can do another round of fundraising.

I know that feeling.  I got caught up in the 2000/2001 downturn when the startup I worked for folded unexpectedly.  Fortunately, my position is much more secure this time.  (knocks on wood).  FWIW, I've worked in tech for a while now (27 years) and this feels similar to 2000/2001. 

[seattlecyclone]

Came here to say that my employer, a smallish startup which shall remain nameless, announced layoffs today of about 25% of the company. My role was not cut, but the mood on the all-company zoom call was, as you can imagine, very low.

It's tough because I, and at least some of my coworkers, had thought we were in a good position in terms of funding. But leadership believes we need to make that funding last longer than initially planned, because it's now expected to be a few years before we can do another round of fundraising.

Yep, exact same situation here.

[scottish]

Came here to say that my employer, a smallish startup which shall remain nameless, announced layoffs today of about 25% of the company. My role was not cut, but the mood on the all-company zoom call was, as you can imagine, very low.

It's tough because I, and at least some of my coworkers, had thought we were in a good position in terms of funding. But leadership believes we need to make that funding last longer than initially planned, because it's now expected to be a few years before we can do another round of fundraising.

I know that feeling.  I got caught up in the 2000/2001 downturn when the startup I worked for folded unexpectedly.  Fortunately, my position is much more secure this time.  (knocks on wood).  FWIW, I've worked in tech for a while now (27 years) and this feels similar to 2000/2001.

My personal recollection of 2001 was alot worse than this.     But we all had different experiences of the tech bubble...     And this time around I'd be perfectly happy to collect a severance package.   :-)

I'm interested in the original question about salaries - are mid-6 figure salaries in the tech sector sustainable in the long run?

[seattlecyclone]

Came here to say that my employer, a smallish startup which shall remain nameless, announced layoffs today of about 25% of the company. My role was not cut, but the mood on the all-company zoom call was, as you can imagine, very low.

It's tough because I, and at least some of my coworkers, had thought we were in a good position in terms of funding. But leadership believes we need to make that funding last longer than initially planned, because it's now expected to be a few years before we can do another round of fundraising.

I know that feeling.  I got caught up in the 2000/2001 downturn when the startup I worked for folded unexpectedly.  Fortunately, my position is much more secure this time.  (knocks on wood).  FWIW, I've worked in tech for a while now (27 years) and this feels similar to 2000/2001.

My personal recollection of 2001 was alot worse than this.     But we all had different experiences of the tech bubble...     And this time around I'd be perfectly happy to collect a severance package.   :-)

I'm interested in the original question about salaries - are mid-6 figure salaries in the tech sector sustainable in the long run?

For many jobs, yes absolutely. The job of a software engineer is often quite literally to make other jobs obsolete by creating software to manage processes that used to require more human labor. So yes, if the code you write can make hundreds or thousands of jobs obsolete, that's absolutely worth lots of money.

[GilesMM]

What kind of packages are people seeing?  4 weeks per year of service? Instant vesting?

[seattlecyclone]

What kind of packages are people seeing?  4 weeks per year of service? Instant vesting?

Really depends on the company! A friend of mine was laid off from Google today and he's getting nearly a year of salary (slightly less than that length of time for stock vesting) since he was working there for almost a decade. The offer that I got from my startup if I didn't want to do the furlough thing was for four weeks of salary plus the cost of a month of COBRA.

[Fomerly known as something]

Came here to say that my employer, a smallish startup which shall remain nameless, announced layoffs today of about 25% of the company. My role was not cut, but the mood on the all-company zoom call was, as you can imagine, very low.

It's tough because I, and at least some of my coworkers, had thought we were in a good position in terms of funding. But leadership believes we need to make that funding last longer than initially planned, because it's now expected to be a few years before we can do another round of fundraising.

I know that feeling.  I got caught up in the 2000/2001 downturn when the startup I worked for folded unexpectedly.  Fortunately, my position is much more secure this time.  (knocks on wood).  FWIW, I've worked in tech for a while now (27 years) and this feels similar to 2000/2001.

This divide is noted in the NYT about tech layoffs.  https://www.yahoo.com/news/tech-layoffs-shock-young-workers-191628840.html

[FINate]

Came here to say that my employer, a smallish startup which shall remain nameless, announced layoffs today of about 25% of the company. My role was not cut, but the mood on the all-company zoom call was, as you can imagine, very low.

It's tough because I, and at least some of my coworkers, had thought we were in a good position in terms of funding. But leadership believes we need to make that funding last longer than initially planned, because it's now expected to be a few years before we can do another round of fundraising.

I know that feeling.  I got caught up in the 2000/2001 downturn when the startup I worked for folded unexpectedly.  Fortunately, my position is much more secure this time.  (knocks on wood).  FWIW, I've worked in tech for a while now (27 years) and this feels similar to 2000/2001.

My personal recollection of 2001 was alot worse than this.     But we all had different experiences of the tech bubble...     And this time around I'd be perfectly happy to collect a severance package.   :-)

I'm interested in the original question about salaries - are mid-6 figure salaries in the tech sector sustainable in the long run?

For many jobs, yes absolutely. The job of a software engineer is often quite literally to make other jobs obsolete by creating software to manage processes that used to require more human labor. So yes, if the code you write can make hundreds or thousands of jobs obsolete, that's absolutely worth lots of money.

True, though I think there's the question of who captures that value. If there's a shortage of SWEs then most of the value goes to the engineers as comp packages get bid up in talent wars. If, on the other hand, there's a surplus of SWEs then most of the value goes to shareholders as engineers compete against one another.

[PDXTabs]

Came here to say that my employer, a smallish startup which shall remain nameless, announced layoffs today of about 25% of the company. My role was not cut, but the mood on the all-company zoom call was, as you can imagine, very low.

It's tough because I, and at least some of my coworkers, had thought we were in a good position in terms of funding. But leadership believes we need to make that funding last longer than initially planned, because it's now expected to be a few years before we can do another round of fundraising.

I know that feeling.  I got caught up in the 2000/2001 downturn when the startup I worked for folded unexpectedly.  Fortunately, my position is much more secure this time.  (knocks on wood).  FWIW, I've worked in tech for a while now (27 years) and this feels similar to 2000/2001.

My personal recollection of 2001 was alot worse than this.     But we all had different experiences of the tech bubble...     And this time around I'd be perfectly happy to collect a severance package.   :-)

I'm interested in the original question about salaries - are mid-6 figure salaries in the tech sector sustainable in the long run?

For many jobs, yes absolutely. The job of a software engineer is often quite literally to make other jobs obsolete by creating software to manage processes that used to require more human labor. So yes, if the code you write can make hundreds or thousands of jobs obsolete, that's absolutely worth lots of money.

True, though I think there's the question of who captures that value. If there's a shortage of SWEs then most of the value goes to the engineers as comp packages get bid up in talent wars. If, on the other hand, there's a surplus of SWEs then most of the value goes to shareholders as engineers compete against one another.

But not every software position is a FAANG total comp package. To pick on one company, Glassdoor says that a Senior Software Engineer at GitLab might make ~$150k in salary plus perhaps ~$25k cash bonus and another $35k in stock:
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/GitLab-Engineering-Salaries-EI_IE1296544.0,6_DEPT1007.htm

That's good money but not $400k out of school mid six figures.

[FINate]

Came here to say that my employer, a smallish startup which shall remain nameless, announced layoffs today of about 25% of the company. My role was not cut, but the mood on the all-company zoom call was, as you can imagine, very low.

It's tough because I, and at least some of my coworkers, had thought we were in a good position in terms of funding. But leadership believes we need to make that funding last longer than initially planned, because it's now expected to be a few years before we can do another round of fundraising.

I know that feeling.  I got caught up in the 2000/2001 downturn when the startup I worked for folded unexpectedly.  Fortunately, my position is much more secure this time.  (knocks on wood).  FWIW, I've worked in tech for a while now (27 years) and this feels similar to 2000/2001.

My personal recollection of 2001 was alot worse than this.     But we all had different experiences of the tech bubble...     And this time around I'd be perfectly happy to collect a severance package.   :-)

I'm interested in the original question about salaries - are mid-6 figure salaries in the tech sector sustainable in the long run?

For many jobs, yes absolutely. The job of a software engineer is often quite literally to make other jobs obsolete by creating software to manage processes that used to require more human labor. So yes, if the code you write can make hundreds or thousands of jobs obsolete, that's absolutely worth lots of money.

True, though I think there's the question of who captures that value. If there's a shortage of SWEs then most of the value goes to the engineers as comp packages get bid up in talent wars. If, on the other hand, there's a surplus of SWEs then most of the value goes to shareholders as engineers compete against one another.

But not every software position is a FAANG total comp package. To pick on one company, Glassdoor says that a Senior Software Engineer at GitLab might make ~$150k in salary plus perhaps ~$25k cash bonus and another $35k in stock:
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/GitLab-Engineering-Salaries-EI_IE1296544.0,6_DEPT1007.htm

That's good money but not $400k out of school mid six figures.

Agreed. To be clear, I'm too far removed from tech (FIREd ~8 years ago) to have a good sense of current market dynamics. Just describing the economic reality. My tech career started during the 2000/2001 implosion. In those days quality SWEs still generated a lot of value, it's just that there were a lot of people competing for a dwindling number of jobs. It was difficult to land a job and almost no one was getting raises/bonuses. Though not sure how 2023 compares.

[314159]

What kind of packages are people seeing?  4 weeks per year of service? Instant vesting?

At my employer, 8 weeks severance, plus "more for people who have been there longer" but the details of that weren't disclosed. Three additional months of vesting and removal of the 1-year cliff. I think the layoff announcements that I've seen on HackerNews lately had a few more than weeks of severance than us. Otherwise quite similar, I haven't heard of any that didn't remove the vesting cliff.

[vand]

The red hot post pandemic job market has clearly turned now, and the signs have been there for a while with crap like quiet quitting becoming a trending thing.  If you have never been through a downturn then it can be a shock to the system, but everyone will likely go through at least a couple during their working careers.

Of course it's not just in tech. Layoffs are happening in most industries as I type this. It's only the typical 26yo six figure earning software engineers think that they are more irreplaceable than most.

[seattlecyclone]

I'm interested in the original question about salaries - are mid-6 figure salaries in the tech sector sustainable in the long run?

For many jobs, yes absolutely. The job of a software engineer is often quite literally to make other jobs obsolete by creating software to manage processes that used to require more human labor. So yes, if the code you write can make hundreds or thousands of jobs obsolete, that's absolutely worth lots of money.

True, though I think there's the question of who captures that value. If there's a shortage of SWEs then most of the value goes to the engineers as comp packages get bid up in talent wars. If, on the other hand, there's a surplus of SWEs then most of the value goes to shareholders as engineers compete against one another.

For sure. In the past several years the engineers got to capture more of this value as companies were snapping up SWEs left and right. Whether most of these new positions had a positive ROI or not is a question above my pay grade, but it's neither here nor there at the moment. The tech labor market is now definitely shifting in the other direction, and those who remain employed through all this will likely feel less empowered to demand to collect such a high percentage of the value they create.

[vand]

Came here to say that my employer, a smallish startup which shall remain nameless, announced layoffs today of about 25% of the company. My role was not cut, but the mood on the all-company zoom call was, as you can imagine, very low.

It's tough because I, and at least some of my coworkers, had thought we were in a good position in terms of funding. But leadership believes we need to make that funding last longer than initially planned, because it's now expected to be a few years before we can do another round of fundraising.

I know that feeling.  I got caught up in the 2000/2001 downturn when the startup I worked for folded unexpectedly.  Fortunately, my position is much more secure this time.  (knocks on wood).  FWIW, I've worked in tech for a while now (27 years) and this feels similar to 2000/2001.

My personal recollection of 2001 was alot worse than this.     But we all had different experiences of the tech bubble...     And this time around I'd be perfectly happy to collect a severance package.   :-)

I'm interested in the original question about salaries - are mid-6 figure salaries in the tech sector sustainable in the long run?

For many jobs, yes absolutely. The job of a software engineer is often quite literally to make other jobs obsolete by creating software to manage processes that used to require more human labor. So yes, if the code you write can make hundreds or thousands of jobs obsolete, that's absolutely worth lots of money.

True, though I think there's the question of who captures that value. If there's a shortage of SWEs then most of the value goes to the engineers as comp packages get bid up in talent wars. If, on the other hand, there's a surplus of SWEs then most of the value goes to shareholders as engineers compete against one another.

Could equally be argued that many of these tech entities will never be profitable amd only exist due to cheap money, therefore create no economic wealth (they are actually wealth-destroying as they tie up scarce resources and impoverish the rest of society), and the high salaries they are paying are just a gross misallocation of resources.

[scottish]

Came here to say that my employer, a smallish startup which shall remain nameless, announced layoffs today of about 25% of the company. My role was not cut, but the mood on the all-company zoom call was, as you can imagine, very low.

It's tough because I, and at least some of my coworkers, had thought we were in a good position in terms of funding. But leadership believes we need to make that funding last longer than initially planned, because it's now expected to be a few years before we can do another round of fundraising.

I know that feeling.  I got caught up in the 2000/2001 downturn when the startup I worked for folded unexpectedly.  Fortunately, my position is much more secure this time.  (knocks on wood).  FWIW, I've worked in tech for a while now (27 years) and this feels similar to 2000/2001.

My personal recollection of 2001 was alot worse than this.     But we all had different experiences of the tech bubble...     And this time around I'd be perfectly happy to collect a severance package.   :-)

I'm interested in the original question about salaries - are mid-6 figure salaries in the tech sector sustainable in the long run?

For many jobs, yes absolutely. The job of a software engineer is often quite literally to make other jobs obsolete by creating software to manage processes that used to require more human labor. So yes, if the code you write can make hundreds or thousands of jobs obsolete, that's absolutely worth lots of money.

True, though I think there's the question of who captures that value. If there's a shortage of SWEs then most of the value goes to the engineers as comp packages get bid up in talent wars. If, on the other hand, there's a surplus of SWEs then most of the value goes to shareholders as engineers compete against one another.

Could equally be argued that many of these tech entities will never be profitable amd only exist due to cheap money, therefore create no economic wealth (they are actually wealth-destroying as they tie up scarce resources and impoverish the rest of society), and the high salaries they are paying are just a gross misallocation of resources.

Yes, I'm sure lots of tech positions don't create any net value.     And it's not necessarily because of the people, there are lots of cancelled projects and products.

We'll see what happens to tech salaries over the next year or two as all of these unemployed people find new work.    It could create a job market where people with pre-2022 salaries are unable to leave their positions without taking a large pay cut.

[Cranky]

My employer just furloughed half the engineers (myself included) because the changing investment environment made management worry that the next round of capital might not be forthcoming when it would have been needed given the prior salary expense.

Well that's super interesting, I've never heard of engineer furloughs in the private sector. It's usually for government employees while budget fights are ongoing. What are the mechanics like in your case? Are you eligible for unemployment, do you expect to come back and/or receive back pay eventually?

Auto and steel manufacturers do it pretty regularly. I've never heard of anyone getting back pay.

[MayDay]

My employer just furloughed half the engineers (myself included) because the changing investment environment made management worry that the next round of capital might not be forthcoming when it would have been needed given the prior salary expense.

Well that's super interesting, I've never heard of engineer furloughs in the private sector. It's usually for government employees while budget fights are ongoing. What are the mechanics like in your case? Are you eligible for unemployment, do you expect to come back and/or receive back pay eventually?

Auto and steel manufacturers do it pretty regularly. I've never heard of anyone getting back pay.

I'm an engineer in manufacturing, and my company favors furloughs over layoffs. We'll do a 1 day a week furlough for example, or a temp layoff (usually voluntary) due to some seasonality in our business. We get health insurance and unemployment. It's actually a pretty good deal if you are financially aware. A lot of people love the temp layoff because they use it for extended travel.

Regarding the layoff age divide, I see that very very strongly at my company. We had company wide temp layoffs when Covid first hit (our sales dropped like a rock). Younger folks lost their damn minds. I remember the 2001 layoffs (was in college) and experienced the 07-10 layoffs, and to me and other folks my age and older, it was not a big deal.

My H works for a boring manufacturing company that hires tech folks, and they regularly bail for Amazon at twice the salary.... Guess who isn't laying anyone off? The boring companies. There are jobs, they just aren't as flashy and fancy.

[Paul der Krake]

I don't exactly remember when it clicked that I was, fundamentally, in the job-destruction business. Gotta be okay with that.

Tech is largely about storing, manipulating, and retrieving data, for one business process or another. Maybe we don't do it yourself, maybe w merely build tools for others to do it. At the end of the day, we're here to replace expensive humans who would otherwise be using some version of a filing cabinet. The tech being cool or clever is a very distant secondary concern.

Sometimes the replacement is worse, and the displacement is real regardless of which is doing a better job. But on net we're freeing humanity from boring repetitive tasks, and that's pretty cool. I'm not interested in going back to a world of elevator operators and travel agents.

[scottish]

I don't exactly remember when it clicked that I was, fundamentally, in the job-destruction business. Gotta be okay with that.

Tech is largely about storing, manipulating, and retrieving data, for one business process or another. Maybe we don't do it yourself, maybe w merely build tools for others to do it. At the end of the day, we're here to replace expensive humans who would otherwise be using some version of a filing cabinet. The tech being cool or clever is a very distant secondary concern.

Sometimes the replacement is worse, and the displacement is real regardless of which is doing a better job. But on net we're freeing humanity from boring repetitive tasks, and that's pretty cool. I'm not interested in going back to a world of elevator operators and travel agents.

Sounds closer to IT than tech.    Automobile driver assist, manufacturing robotics and jet airplanes don't do a lot of data storage, manipulation and retrieval for business processes.  Relatively speaking.

[FINate]

I don't exactly remember when it clicked that I was, fundamentally, in the job-destruction business. Gotta be okay with that.

Tech is largely about storing, manipulating, and retrieving data, for one business process or another. Maybe we don't do it yourself, maybe w merely build tools for others to do it. At the end of the day, we're here to replace expensive humans who would otherwise be using some version of a filing cabinet. The tech being cool or clever is a very distant secondary concern.

Sometimes the replacement is worse, and the displacement is real regardless of which is doing a better job. But on net we're freeing humanity from boring repetitive tasks, and that's pretty cool. I'm not interested in going back to a world of elevator operators and travel agents.

Sounds closer to IT than tech.    Automobile driver assist, manufacturing robotics and jet airplanes don't do a lot of data storage, manipulation and retrieval for business processes.  Relatively speaking.

No PdK is correct, the majority of tech is about storing, manipulating, and moving data around. While I was an engineer at Google there was a popular internal meme lamenting the plight of SWEs that went something like "I take data from one protobuf and put it into a different protobuf" (protobuf, or Protocol Buffer, being Google's proprietary method for serializing and storing data). Manipulating data is so common that we have acronyms such as CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete). As you say, parts of tech don't deal with large amounts of data, but these are relatively small, and I'd be willing to bet that companies doing robotics and driver assist software deal with a lot of CRUD to mange and test their products. Yes, day to day life in the software mines is a lot more mundane than the slick marketing sold to the public.

[PDXTabs]

I don't exactly remember when it clicked that I was, fundamentally, in the job-destruction business. Gotta be okay with that.

Tech is largely about storing, manipulating, and retrieving data, for one business process or another. Maybe we don't do it yourself, maybe w merely build tools for others to do it. At the end of the day, we're here to replace expensive humans who would otherwise be using some version of a filing cabinet. The tech being cool or clever is a very distant secondary concern.

Sometimes the replacement is worse, and the displacement is real regardless of which is doing a better job. But on net we're freeing humanity from boring repetitive tasks, and that's pretty cool. I'm not interested in going back to a world of elevator operators and travel agents.

Sounds closer to IT than tech.    Automobile driver assist, manufacturing robotics and jet airplanes don't do a lot of data storage, manipulation and retrieval for business processes.  Relatively speaking.

No PdK is correct, the majority of tech is about storing, manipulating, and moving data around. While I was an engineer at Google there was a popular internal meme lamenting the plight of SWEs that went something like "I take data from one protobuf and put it into a different protobuf" (protobuf, or Protocol Buffer, being Google's proprietary method for serializing and storing data). Manipulating data is so common that we have acronyms such as CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete). As you say, parts of tech don't deal with large amounts of data, but these are relatively small, and I'd be willing to bet that companies doing robotics and driver assist software deal with a lot of CRUD to mange and test their products. Yes, day to day life in the software mines is a lot more mundane than the slick marketing sold to the public.

I once read a book that said that "the essence of Computer Science is input and output." Now I don't know where I read that and I wish that I did. But yes, a self driving car is 100% input and output with bunch of algorithms in the middle.

[less4success]

I don't exactly remember when it clicked that I was, fundamentally, in the job-destruction business. Gotta be okay with that.

I prefer the term "drudgery-destruction", but yes.

[GilesMM]

I once read a book that said that "the essence of Computer Science is input and output." Now I don't know where I read that and I wish that I did. But yes, a self driving car is 100% input and output with bunch of algorithms in the middle.

Correct. And most programming/software issues are related to input and output, not to processing/manipulation.

[rantk81]

The most challenging part of a software engineering job is reading someone else's code and understanding it well enough that you are able to make changes/enhancements/bug-fixes to it, without causing any (any more?) problems/bugs.

[dcheesi]

I tend to think that at least the timing of the latest layoffs (e.g., Google) is explained by this article:
https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-layoffs-worried/
[tl;dr: copycat behavior]

My company posted pretty good earnings/profits last year . . . and then followed it up with a round of layoffs 'because of the coming recession'.  But the layoffs were a little weird.  Usually layoffs target mostly dead weight, but we lost several good people.

IME, the first round of layoffs is usually dead weight. But later rounds tend to focus on the money, often leading to a sort of reverse seniority effect where greybeards get the axe because they're paid more [and the implicit age discrimination is totally incidental...].

Sounds like your company may have skipped straight to Round 2? Probably means a beancounter was in charge of the process, and possibly the decision itself.

[Monocle Money Mouth]

The most challenging part of a software engineering job is reading someone else's code and understanding it well enough that you are able to make changes/enhancements/bug-fixes to it, without causing any (any more?) problems/bugs.

You get paid the big bucks to figure out why the last guy wrote a 150 line long method with a switch statement inside of a try/catch block inside of a do/while loop inside of an if/else inside of a using block where all the variable names are single letters and they used full namespaces when declaring them.  After attempting to troubleshoot it, you realize the name of the method doesn't actually describe what the method does.