This content originally appeared on Level Up Coding - Medium and was authored by Andrew Allison
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month you’ve undoubtedly heard of the recent layoffs in tech. There have been 788 tech companies with layoffs and a total of 120,699 employees laid off worldwide in 2022 according to Roger Lee’s https://layoffs.fyi/. This month several companies announced some staffing changes as a result of several factors including weak earnings through Q3 2022 and an upcoming economic downturn. Here is a list of some of the major layoffs announced in the last three months:
- Twitter: 50% (~3,700 employees)
- Cameo: 25% (~80 employees)
- Robinhood: 23% (~780 employees and also 9% or ~340 employees in April 2022)
- Intel: Up to 20% of some business areas
- Snapchat: 20% (~1,300 employees)
- Coinbase: 18% (~1,100 employees)
- Opendoor: 18% (~550 employees)
- Stripe: 14% (~1,100 employees)
- Lyft: 13% (~700 employees)
- Meta: 13% (~11,000 employees)
- Shopify: 10% (~1,000 employees)
- Amazon: 3% (~10,0000 employees)
- Oracle: An unknown %
In addition to this Apple is on a hiring freeze likely to extend into 2023. This is not a new phenomenon; I remember seeing a round of layoffs first-hand when I was 8 months into my first job after graduation. People who had been at the company for 30 years (Yes, 30 years at a tech company!), some even on the brink of retirement were let go. It didn’t seem like there was any rhyme nor reason to the decision as to who got spared. I counted myself very lucky to have not been axed myself. There was a positive takeaway, however, as most of my former colleagues were able to find new roles relatively quickly. New roles in which they were much happier in fact! Tough times can force us to shape how we want our careers to be defined and how we want to market ourselves.
What influences the chance of being laid off?
At the macro level the chances of being laid off mostly depends on stock performance. Publicly-traded companies have a upmost duty to shareholders. At the micro level, things that affect it include performance (i.e. is someone on a PIP — performance improvement plan?), total compensation (i.e. is someone being overpaid?), lines of code written (i.e. is someone not contributing?), risky business areas (i.e. R&D experiments with high expenditure), if someone is a recent bootcamp grad, etc. All of these are factors in the algorithm. There are some heartbreaking implications that don’t seem to be considered when downsizing as well. Getting rid of people who have a family to support, people holding visas contingent on employment, or security/infra engineers who write minimal (but extremely important) lines of code it will definitely damage that company’s reputation amongst the dev community.
Heading it off at the pass
So as a dev how do we get ahead of this and stop it at an early stage? There are some things to consider depending on how we want our careers to be defined and how we want to market ourselves.
Impact on your current role and internal moves
Do you feel the layoff will impact your role? Chances are if you answer this question with a “yes” then you’ve already started thinking about some ways to nip this thing in the bud before you find yourself forced out. If an internal transfer is still an option it might be wise to start reaching out to your internal network at your current company. If you aren’t on PIP and you have a good standing with your direct manager it shouldn’t be that big of an issue. Industry experience and a firm knowledge of internal tools and processes goes a long way here. At this moment in time it would also be wise to not expect any substantial increase in salary. Lastly, make sure the new internal role isn’t considered a risky business area.
Moving from your current company
Perhaps you are currently in a SME or a startup with little room to move around internally. Surprisingly, now is still a good time to look for roles elsewhere. In fact, it’s never a bad time to have your eyes peeled as a dev. The best way of getting your foot in the door anywhere is always knowing someone who already works there (preferably as a dev) and getting that referral. Third party recruiters also look like they are currently chomping at the bit to get new hires in the door before the end of Q4. If you don’t want to go that route there are several ways to network online. The job board called angel.co is normally full of hungry new founders fighting for talent in startups and SMEs. This climate tech job board by Nick Van Osdol has been one of my favorites to follow this year: Keep Cool. Then you have your usual suspects like StackOverflow, LinkedIn, and The Muse. In fact here is a list of 14 companies I’ve seen reaching out to devs impacted by layoffs in the last month (in no particular order):
- Veho (Engineering, Product, and IT — Logistics): https://shipveho.com/careers/
- RTI (Engineering — Robotics): https://www.rti.com/company/careers
- Mindshow (Engineering — Animation): https://mindshow.com/careers
- Rivian (Engineering — Electric Vehicles): https://rivian.com/careers
- Optym (Algo SSE level, PSE FI, SSE Backend — Business Automation): https://optym.com/careers/
- Fueled (Engineering, Design, Product Management): https://fueled.com/careers
- Zoho (Marketing, Sales — Enterprise Software): https://us-careers.zohorecruit.com/jobs/Careers
- Harman (Engineering — Car Technology): http://jobs.harman.com/
- Ultipro (Engineering — Human Capital Management SaaS): https://recruiting.ultipro.com/
- Fortna (Engineering — Warehouse Optimization, Design, & Automation Services): https://www.fortna.com/about/careers/
- Wyndham (Engineering — Hotels and Hospitality): https://careers.wyndhamhotels.com/job-invite/21464/
- Servicenow (Engineering — Digital workflows for enterprise operations): https://careers.servicenow.com/careers/jobs/743999857611181EXT?lang=en-us
- Airbnb: https://careers.airbnb.com/
- Netflix: https://jobs.netflix.com/
Freelancing
Another route would be to work for yourself. Be your own boss and not in a MLM way. Thanks to gig sites like Upwork, Fiverr, and Task Rabbit, you can market yourself and provide your services in a more personalized way. If you have a good knowledge of cloud computing on AWS then IQ Certified Freelancing by AWS might be worth exploring. If you’ve got the knack for it, tech writing can sometimes be a good way to earn an extra source of income. I might know of a good platform that can help you get started…
Exploring other areas
Speaking of writing, maybe you have given some thought to pivoting your career within tech. With so many areas such as product management, back end, front end, security, infrastructure, sales, marketing, data science, quality assurance, business intelligence, robotics, networking, hardware, etc. there is no shortage of options if you think that you are not cut out for your current role in tech. Furthermore, in the past 15 years there has been an increasing shortage for non-tech, skilled professionals due to Baby Boomer retirement, the Great Recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Airline Pilot shortages is the one that sticks out most in my mind. If you have the daydream about leaving tech altogether there are plenty of options. The question is are you willing (or even able) to sacrifice some income? This will most likely be the case. Careers (healthcare, law, education) that are not likely to be automated in the next 20 years are also a good bet.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes life is about the journey, not the destination. There are lots of opportunities to turn losses into lessons. Many people such as Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Jobs, and Walt Disney (and that’s just to name a few!) were let go from jobs early in their career only to go on to make a bigger name for themselves. Whatever the situation is I hope we all make it through graciously.
This will likely be the final article I post on Medium in 2022. We’re coming up on the end of the year which means there are more pressing responsibilities which I need to manage. Stay tuned in 2023 for more coding tutorials on how to build things such as:
- A Versioned Document Management Application (React + AWS)
- A Batch CSV Import / Export Microservice (NodeJS + AWS)
- A Real-Time Messaging Application (React + NodeJS + AWS)
- plus an update on the new frontend framework Svelte
Thanks for following — please drop any questions, comments, or hot takes you may have below!
Where to turn when tech layoffs are coming left and right was originally published in Level Up Coding on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
This content originally appeared on Level Up Coding - Medium and was authored by Andrew Allison
Andrew Allison | Sciencx (2022-11-17T21:48:53+00:00) Where to turn when tech layoffs are coming left and right. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2022/11/17/where-to-turn-when-tech-layoffs-are-coming-left-and-right/
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