Layoffs Q&A and Videos

I have been doing good at my current company, been here for 3+ years working initially as an Entry Level, then promoted after an year to a MidLevel Software Engineer. I have been receiving "Exceeds Expectations i.e. 4/5" rating since the beginning and "Superb i.e. 5/5" rating once. I applied for international relocation to Singapore back in July. The manager and skip mentioned that while cost cutting is going on, they are making an exception for me and it should be processed completely by initial weeks of January 2023. In times of layoffs, and especially with my company's stocks not doing that good, I am afraid if it could lead to getting laid off. This is causing me a bit of anxiety. Although it is being mentioned by leadership that no layoffs are happening, we are seeing projects getting cut off, rigorous re-orgs happening, and entire focus of the organisation is on cost saving, which I feel is great especially in current times. I started the conversations for relocation when times were going good in terms of offers being posted in the market. The teams were thriving as well in terms of work. But by the time entire process got over, it seems the situations have changed. What should I do? To add on, another thing I did sometime back was to share with my manager on how I am performing several roles of the next level and how it can be used to further the cause of promotion in the upcoming performance reviews. I tried to break down the career ladder doc into key umbrellas of behaviours needed, and assigned the initiatives I delivered under those. Now afraid if this was another way I shot myself in the foot by asking for more in times of cost-saving and probably being conservative. Please assist with your advice.

I work for a consultancy company. The client I was assigned to recently changed to another service provider and all my team (7 contractors including 2 project managers) were put on the bench. The staffing team is looking for another project where I might be a good fit and they say there's no deadline to assign me to another project, but I'm not sure of that and every day it feels like I will be fired in any moment. My motivation went from 100% to literally zero. I don't know what to focus on now and I feel lost. It is an odd feeling. What can I do now? Things I've done so far: Created a side project for helping people manage their finances using Django + PostgreSQL. I've been practicing in leetcode and hackerrank. Now I'm reading Elements of programming interviews in python.

Hey everyone, I've been working at a seed stage startup in London for 5 months now. I am the sole contributor to an ML product the company is launching and I'm taking care of the entire ML life cycle (training/testing/deploying/monitoring/integrating) But the startup is trying to scale vertically (creating a suite of products/ecosystem of tools for its niche). This is the company's second product and is the bigger product compared to the first product they launched and has more revenue opportunities I haven't had much exposure to the software side of the product as there is currently so much scope for ML opportunities I am also a junior. I have about .75 YoE before I started working here and I am terrified that the company is going to lay me off once they get enough of this AI product done and its time to move on to the next. I worry they're gonna want some SWE with 10 YoE and I'm not that. I don't want to have to job search in this market as well About me: my expertise is 70% ML and 30% SWE. I also have a bs in cs so I'm not a noob at SWE. MLE is also 80% SWE and 20% ML realistically Questions How to ensure that if the company decides to start another product that they won't just ditch me How to figure out the long term plans? I've tried asking to figure out but with such early stage startups it's hard to know what their plans are I am totally okay and happy to contribute to the software efforts as well should they decide to move on. just don't want to get laid off!

I just got laid off from the startup I was working at with zero notice. I'm back on the job hunt. I've been working for about seven years now. I was a full-stack developer in my recent position. In the first five years of my career, I've worked in roles where I've had to carry out SRE work. I'm looking at a job posting for an SRE position at a place I'd like to work. What are the things that I should consider when before taking the call to apply for SRE roles?

I'm a software engineer with ~7.5 years of total work exp. I have worked in the past with Spotify (~1.5 years) and Netflix (1.3 years). Unfortunately, I was laid off thrice (yes, 3 times) back to back. Hence, I don't have solid (long) work experience in one of these well-known companies. Is this a bad thing that has happened? how can I recover from this and ensure I'm well-prepared for my next role? I sometimes worry the years I spent at these companies are worthless, maybe I could have learned more if I had not been laid off. I certainly understand I cannot undo my lay-offs, but how can I bridge this gap with my next employer and make sure I'm not in the victim situation here? Also, I'm paranoid if this happens again. Any words of advice/encouragement are deeply appreciated.

I recently changed teams(been over 4 weeks). The current team did not have a manager/sr. engg manager to report to, and everyone reported to an Sr. director. This sr. director reported to a VP in my org. Unfortunately during a round of layoffs, our director got laid off. So, now imagine my team is "headless". Our VP did mention that they will try to bring in someone interim. Say that happens, and I am able to make a good connection with this "new" but temporary manager, but after a few months, we get a "permanent" manager, my questions and/or concerns around these are This would be my first time I will be in this situation mine is a tier-3 company, also not a tech-first company, is this how even Big Tech works? How do you all navigate this change, and continuous (non-technical) context switch of leadership? As you might have guessed how do I best make sure that my accomplishments(refers to the brag doc*) gets clearly communicated between my old manager, me, and my new manager? Does it make sense to even "talk" about getting promoted with the old manager if I have been on this team for 4 weeks? Re. to point 3, some notes about my accomplishments: I already was able to find bugs in their pipelines, and communicated about this to cross functional teams too, and everyone acknowledged this, and we have been able to avoid a major failure while shipping to prod environment, thereby saving us time(in months). What I am trying to say is I have been making(in my humble opinion) impact from day 1. I also am contributing to an internal library which will be used for onboarding several teams(cross regional too) in my company. I am the second developer on this repo. I already am keeping track about all of this in my "brag doc", I have been clearly communicating about my work with my scrum master, my current Principal Engineer, and other engineers. This is painful to write but, we have 3 engineers including me who are on the same level as mine(level 2), 1 Level-1, and 1 Principal Engg. Now, I am not comparing, but how do I put my best foot forward so that I too get a shot of pushing forward my promo packet along with others? There is a notion in my company(I dont know about Big Tech) that we "tend to" not have more than 2 level-3 engineers on a team, so should I just give up of not hoping to get promoted, and instead keep my head down and wait for new year or until I quit? Sorry if I sound negative, but its what it is. Some more information about me: YOE: 6+ this is what has been killing me from inside, 6+ yoe, and stuck on Level-2, I agree things were not hunky dory with me(been through a lot of personal s***), and couldn't focus on this side of my life. I agree this is my mistake, but I know myself, and I know I can make it work,I can push myself and make it work, but asking for a guidance is all. Appreciate you all for reading till the end, can't thank this community especially Rahul,and Alex.

I have 3+ years in the industry and have been privy to layoffs since 2023. I wish to understand how you view/process these layoffs and is the current situation unprecedented or just a sine wave occurrence in the industry.

I have been impacted by the recent layoffs. Let’s call it Company A. After that, I got an offer from company B. Since I’m on H1B visa, I had to sign the offer and join the company as soon as the visa transfer is completed. Let’s say a short time (less than 2 months) after joining company B, I got an offer from other companies - company C that I have interviewed in the past which offer better level, scope (project) and TC and if I decide to move to company C. Questions: How should I notify the manager at company B and explain them the situation? How and when do I notify company C that I had to join company B to maintain my visa status? I’m afraid that company C would think bad as I’m leaving a recently joined company B (what if the company C’s recruiter think if I will do same with them in future) What if the company C does layoffs after joining them? Is there a possibility to make sure anything(s) with company B to burn as less bridges as possible? Communication tips are much appreciated Any other inputs/questions I need to keep in mind Thank you so much.

I have an offer that's much better than being laid off (actually, freelancing is going well, but let's put that aside) but much worse than what I think I'm worth (I think I could get 50%+ more comp with 1-3 more months of job search) so I'm planning to accept and keep interviewing. How should I message other companies as I keep interviewing? declare my new employer, companies like to hire people that are employed and it outweighs quick-leaving stigma

1. Note, in case company prestige matters, this is a Tier 2 household name company currently ranking in the top 80 according to do not declare the new employer, continue to signal that I was recently laid off. this might show a 1-3 month gap on my resume but that's better than being a "quick leaver" something else

Our manager assigned a colleague and me both of us junior developers to a repository we have no experience working on, with no help or prior knowledge provided. We asked our senior for guidance, and she told us we need to reach out to two other teams to get a knowledge transfer. We have 10 days to complete the task, but there’s already been a delay due to code reviews. Our manager refuses to understand the situation and told us that our jobs and especially our performance reviews are on the line. Should I consider switching to a different org, or is it time to leave the company?
(I really don't like posting question like this)

If someone was in a company for 5 years out of which some years were in one country while he was laid off in another country, What is the general guideline wrt severance payment? Is it paid on pro-rated basis or total months would simply be multiplied with the monthly salary of place where they were laid off from?

Hi!

I had mic issues in the OH and couldn't ask live. How would you recommend I prepare for System Design interview questions, especially since I feel my experience at my previous company didn't prepare me well for these?

I have 2.5 years of experience at a big tech company and was recently laid off. Ideally, I’m aiming for an ~L4 level position as I was L3 in my past role and was nearing promotion. I’m getting more interviews at start-ups now, and they typically focus on system design rather than leetcode questions. At my past company, the tools were so powerful that I didn’t get the same breadth of experience a new grad might get at a smaller company. For example, I never touched or thought about our database or considered scalability for our services. In hindsight, I should have taken the initiative to find projects outside of my team with more scope, but now I know better!

My current plan is to read "System Design Interview" by Alex Xu and go through the Taro System Design Masterclass. Do you have any feedback on this plan? I recently had my first system design interviews and have more coming up. I want to prepare as best as I can with the time I have. I’ve accepted that I may not excel at first, but any feedback to improve my preparation plan and mindset would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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Hi all. I was recently laid off from Meta. I joined Meta 4.5 years ago after my internship. I never touched Leetcode or did interviews when I was at Meta. I know that I there is a lot that I need to study. I am considering enrolling in an interview bootcamp. They are expensive but it would be worth the price if it can help me land another role. Does anyone have experience with software engineer interview bootcamps?

Hello everyone. I work for a consulting company. My last project finished 2 months ago and I've not been able to find another project within my employer's clients. People in charge assigning projects asked me if I have experience in a specific set of technologies but they are mostly related to data engineering or AI/ML and I'm a backend developer. How can I increase the chances to find a project. I don't want to be laid off.

Hello, I joined Meta at E4 as SWE Specialist. I managed to get GEE at my first performance review, and I got promoted to E5. Then two rounds of layoffs happened, and several reorgs. I started to struggle in my personal life, and work started to go side ways, and I missed some deadlines. This broke relationship with my manager. I had a couple meetings when my manager was shouting at me. My team was also 8-hour timezone shifted, so it was hard for me to find new projects at my level. The priorities shifted after reorgs, and I struggled to catch up on the changes. I also feel like I'm not suitable for specialist position. I'm more of a generalist. Long story short, I was laid off without PIP. I'm feeling really bad about it now, and it hurt my confidence at lot, and I'm still struggling with panic attacks from time to time... I was recently offered staff level position at a mid-size company. The team is distributed in a very similar timezones - 2 hours difference. I have some technical leadership experience from a startup, but I think it's going to be different than in mid-size company. I don't think it's going to be same as staff at Meta because of the scale of the company. I found out that I'd be the first staff engineer in the org, so even the manager is not clear what the expectations are. I'm sort of second guessing my decision here. Did I make a stupid decision? I don't want to get laid off again. I have also another offer for a senior position at another mid-size company, but the team sounds less interesting. Do you guys have any advice? How do I get back on the horse again? I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I guess I might be looking for some kind of absolution for my sins, so that I can move on... I wish I could start things completely over but life is not a video game... How do I rebuild my reputation?

I recently got laid off, so I'm wondering if I should be upfront and let people know that I got laid off when reaching out for job opportunities on LinkedIn or meetups? What about during job interviews. Should I be upfront and let them know during the first round of interview or tell them later after few rounds of interviews?

I've just started at a new company in Big Tech and have taken over responsibility for a large codebase. I learned that most of the people who were previously responsible for the code base (and who may have developed it) were laid off earlier this year. Is it OK for me to reach out to those people or is this bad form and maybe breaks some rules? The purpose of reaching out would be to get an overview from them on the codebase and perhaps ask questions as they come up.