Why wouldn't someone look under those circumstances?

I'm at meta and was fortunate enough to not be laid off but I'm starting to prepare for interviews over the next 6 months and trying to get myself in the mindset that I don't need to be at a "top" company chasing the best TC anymore and should focus more on joining somewhere I can enjoy and believe in the products.

But also, people voluntarily quitting is even better for Amazon.. no severance.

Never been laid off thankfully.

I have been fired or managed out every time.

I mean if you want to stay, why wouldn’t you continue to work in a productive manner?

The world is smaller than you think. There’s a good chance that if you ever interview at. Another big tech company someone will talk to someone who worked with you and your reputation will follow you around.

Jassy made a big mistake

No one mentioned working overtime except for you. If you want to work overtime then you do you!!

I can’t imagine being so lazy that you still go to work and collect. A pay check but don’t do any work for the company and just work in your resume as you suggest.

There is a happy medium between working overtime and doing no work at all.

Hopefully you’ll find some work life balance in your life, because work really can be fun and fulfilling if you are lucky and work at it.

When you first get a job, you sign an employment agreement that outlines your responsibilities. If you're actually doing a poor job, why would the employer bother putting you through a PIP? They'd just lay you off. The PIP is a renegotiation of your employment without giving you a raise. They'd like you to do more for less because they think that either the market or your financial position is in their favor.

The economy at large is much bigger concern and impact to businesses. Even land development would continue, with only minor hiccups.

So we see this endless game of "large" "profitable" companies that are the equivalent of 90s vaporware, doing nothing but shuffling numbers around in a spreadsheet without creating value. But the government is terrified of any form of meaningful regulation (because so much campaign finance is tied into these zombie corporations)

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate

Real rates are still negative. Isn't that all that matters?

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/REAINTRATREARAT1YE

> High nominal interest rates are clearly themselves still bad for business

I don't get why nominal matters. Say you borrow 100k and have to pay it back with interest 1 year from now. Inflation rate as measured by CPI/PCE is higher than the interest rate of your fixed rate loan. What you do is basically mobilize that capital and transform it into products and services that you'll sell to customers.

Inflation works in your favor because prices of the goods that you sell during the year following you taking a loan, they rise at a higher rate than your fixed rate loan

I'm not a fan of Zuckerberg, but his communication about the layoff at Meta was much more timely, clear and empathetic than this note from Jassy.

- Zuckerberg: https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-mes...

- Jassy: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/a-note-from-ce...

A few teams may still be hiring but they are very rare exceptions.

Ironically I remember some rabblerousing around Zuck's announcement as well but overall I would have to agree; Meta was a bit more transparent vs the staggered approach we are seeing from Amazon.

It's weird because there's still a 'public gap' with at least Amazon's announcement; as a person who has been at bigcorps, I know a hiring freeze is not a hard freeze or transfer-freeze, necessarily. But the overall messaging here is a bit more grim.

> Plus the added departures just from the stress of not knowing who gets cut next.

My cynical and experienced self knows that I've sat in interviews where beforehand I was given a psychological profile based on how the candidate answered a questionnaire. (The company was sub 2k employees, which is worth mentioning because it obfuscates who I'm referring to but also shows how 'accessible' this service is.)

From this viewpoint, I'd have to say they are hoping that the people who don't jump ship are those confident enough their existing options will vest that they will stay, and can handle the impending work-life-balance disruptions.

Of course, they might not -actually- be able to. And some who think they can, cannot, and that will come out in the woodwork.

Perhaps more sadly though, are those who couldn't make it and suffered external effects.

It's a real concern. I was 'stuck' in a job due to the Great Recession and the consequences of not just quitting and doing some random minwage gig cost me a good 5+ years of my life to get back on my feet (There's still parts I'm trying to fix!)

tl;dr - This sounds like turnover for SDEs may get closer to warehouse worker turnover.

Sometimes I have a feeling I could do with a random minwage gig for some time due to fatigue from programming in a corporate environment, but have been putting it off due to it being a questionable financial decision, especially now with a looming recession. Wha

At the time, minimum wage was a lot less and other expenses (helping pay for my now-ex-wife's college and car insurance, then a whole long story of undiagnosed ADD) made doing so untenable, especially since about half of that time was before the ACA was in a usable state.

I'll note however that there is a difference between fatigue (1), an unhealthy working environment (2), and abuse (3).

The job in question was in category 3. It is just over 10 years ago, at that job that my boss told me I couldn't have a day off when my mother had a 50/50 shot of surviving the next 48 hours.

Category 2, is something you have to recognize as such, because it has a subtle difference between 1 and 3. (Or, maybe, 3 is a subset of 2.) I've been in that boat, and it tends to be a situation where you can't take a proper break, or every 1-week vacation you ever take makes you regret taking it.

In this particular case, what Jassy seems to be saying to employees is that they should be customer obsessed and work hard for the holiday season but he cannot guarantee they will still have their job in Q1. That sucks. My heart goes out to everyone who is and will be impacted.

This is backward looking. The right thing to do is look at your forecasts of the future and adjust according to those (because the past is in the past and is unchangeable).

I'd be much more inclined to stay at a company that lowered my pay 20% than a company that laid off my coworkers. Not letting people go shows empathy, and uniform pay decreases align everyone's interests in getting back to a good state.

I could see why some might jump ship from a poorly performing company during ordinary economic times, but during this down tech cycle, the grass isn't necessarily greener. Going elsewhere might be difficult or put your head back on the chopping block.

[1] Or as some might view it, an opportunity.

And then you get into the difficulties where the highest paid people tend to be paid with stock, so _they already are having pay cuts from drops_. When you're looking at "cash on hand" problems it's hard to get everything balanced right. Though I do think it's worth it to try and make something work.

Personally I'm a bit of the opinion that larger companies have a responsibility to bank in employee costs more long term than in growth phases. Especially places with higher attrition, if you're able to run the clock for a year hiring freezes + shutting down teams that you want to shut down anyways feels like it would be less demotivating. But I don't know

Meta employees got gold-plated severance packages. The complainers have other issues than the layoff.

> For those who lost their job in the United States, Meta said it would pay severance of 16 weeks of their base pay, along with two additional weeks for every year they worked at the company. Laid-off workers and their families will have health care paid for six months. [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/technology/meta-layoffs-f...

I agree though Meta's severance package was quite good.

My stance is that the subset of visa holders impacted by layoffs is STILL a very fortunate crowd stings no matter what.

[0] https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=meta+platforms+inc&job=&ci...

There were 48 hours of layoffs and no communication from any CEO, S-Team member or other senior leadership at Amazon. Beth Galetti (HR) took the time write up a post about the hiring freeze a couple weeks back but radio silence from leadership while the rank and file scrambled to find out who was affected. With Amazon being so fastidious about communications to curate their corporate image, it's surprising that they didn't bother to communicate unless it was (possibly) intentional.

I appreciate Andy finally sending something out, but it feels like this was a big miss at the very least.

Source: https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/11/16/23463223/amazon-layoff...

I've been through a number of layoffs all the way from getting notice that my last day is 2 weeks from the announcement to 9 months. To be honest, the shorter period was better, at least for me.

When it's a long notice (say >2 months), you enter into this weird gray zone. You're neither unemployed nor employed with a long term job. All motivation disappears and you're just "waiting". Obviously you can use the time to find a new job, but there is only so much time you can devote to that.

It was far better to get notice a month or two in advance of pending layoffs (exactly who not disclosed), then get an announcement that your last day is in 2 weeks, but you'll get 60 days of pay, then your severence payout.

Felt like "ripping the bandaid off" was much preferable. At least you can get on with things at that point.

There more to it than the total cost of devs it matters what people are working on and if the products will produce revenue.

Layoffs are labor level reductions amid ongoing or expected periods of excess labor capacity. It’s almost a classic supply chain/operations management problem. Classically an Amazon core competence and problem at Amazon [1].

There are both shortage and excess costs to labor levels (ie. labor inventory) vs labor demand, combined consider as a supply-demand mismatch cost. To minimize this cost is to create a perfectly coordinated supply chain/inventory system through minimizing shortages and excesses.

Statistically speaking, it is incredibly difficult for a company to perfectly return to that optimal level of supply in 1 single action because the optimal level is difficult to measure in the short run. Therefore, by monitoring supply and demand of labor over time, you are able to make more precise adjustments to return to optimal level of labor.

Sadly, this strategy implies Amazon likely used a lower percentile estimate of required labor reductions for initial layoffs, meaning the mean/median estimate of required labor reductions is likely higher than already announced.

[1] https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-wareh...

https://medium.com/geekculture/the-dead-sea-effect-d71df1372...

One question I do have is since H1B is technically only allowed when there is not a citizen who can complete the job, does that mean that people on visas would be laid off first or does that not go into consideration for the layoffs.

I don't understand how everyone can do this at the same time and it's not connected and planned.

Try again.

Otherwise, people will naturally treat it with the skepticism it deserves. Or, put less charitably, as the nonsense that it is.

I'm not looking to persuade that group or yourself. I'm happy to leave you in your own worldview. My original comments were for others. If you want someone to care enough to persuade you, pay them.

Oh! It’s very much connected like this https://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2014/04/apple-googl...

https://fortune.com/2022/06/02/fortune-500-amazon-ceo-andy-j...

Andy's package is so excessive that even the advisory board objects to it

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ceo-andy-jassy-salary...

How did they get $211,933,520? 61,000 shares multiplied by the price at the time (eyeballing the chart, the 2021 price looks to be around $160) gets you $9,760,000.

Doesn't seem so ridiculous of a compensation if you want to keep the carrot above the stick at each level of the management chain.

[0]: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/software-en...

Andy Jasy is under-compensated IMO. He should be getting half of Bezos' shares.

Andy Jassey's salary is $175,000

For ease of calculation: 50% income tax and 20% capital gains, stock doubles in value.

Get paid 10M, pay 5M in tax. Buy 5M in stock which is worth 2x as much in 5 years when you sell it. Pay 5M * 20% = 1M in capital gains. Keep 9M at the end of the day.

Get paid 10M in RSUs. Sell when they vest at 2x the value in 5 years. 20M pay 50% in capital gains and keep 10M.

I still do not get your point. This situation is tax advantageous only if the stock appreciates. if the stock is flat there is no tax advantage. If the stock declines this situation becomes a tax dis-advantage. Motivating executives to increase stock price over a medium time horizon (these RSUs vest over 4 years) to have this tax advantage is not a bad incentive...

That’s the thing executives are negotiating the kind of compensation they want and the risks they are willing to live with. The point is to get paid in a tax advantaged fashion without the risks associated with stock options.

Get paid 10M in RSUs, when they vest at 2x: pay regular income tax on 20M.

There’s no difference between an RSU vest and getting cash then immediately buying shares. Sometimes there is with options but not RSUs.

In 2022 you get 10 million in A) RSU’s that vest in 5 years or B) cash in 2022 C) cash in 2027.

Of course no company actually pays people before they do work, but this does explain why Amazon’s RSU’s don’t vest 25%, 25%, 25, 25% instead the last 2 years are 40% and 40%. And people get issues new RSU’s before the old ones finished vesting.

A single RSU grant normally results in multiple different taxable events across several years those dates are a major factor in what RSUs are. Both in the uncertainty around actual value and when you actually pay taxes.

Steve Jobs is rather famous for renegotiating his contract after the stock price fell, but this is fairly common. The compensation package as a whole must be sufficiently attractive, and of course when you look into things like golden parachutes any one element of a compensation package never tells the whole story.

So 10M comp package + 0 starting capitol vs 0 comp package + 5M starting capitol? The latter isn't a comp package.

Thus, 10M in RSU that vest in 5 years > 10M in cash today (not a real option) > 10M in cash in 5 years.

However, this also helps explain 5%,15%, 40%, 40% vesting schedules they are somewhat better than 25%,25%,25%,25% for the company because it better incentivizes staying and for the employee due to tax advantages.

If someone can negotiate both RSUs and a golden parachute then they are simply better off than taking that exact same salary in cash.

Yeah. That's what I would do too if I was the CEO of Amazon.

What would you do differently?

https://www.wtwco.com/en-CA/Insights/2020/12/ceo-pay-landsca...

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/15/morale/

This shift was long overdue, hopefully we'll start to see meaningful projects that moves humanity forward from now on, economy of the self has to go

I doubt that'll come from amazon, but the signal is loud and clear

Anyway not to worry. Software is complex. If the industry is not paying well then it will be difficult to attract smart people to deal with all that complexity. Lower pay, less smart people, less competitiveness, less revenue for us companies. Simple as.

But that wasn't even the point i was trying to make, merit is no longer rewarded since the expectation for a high salary is the baseline, hence it's not usual to see high burn rate in big corporations and highly valued startups, inflating everything up to the point where nobody can compete anymore unless you go hire in india/asia with the problems that comes with it (socioeconomics)

Check the various hiring posts from YC, it's telling

> then it will be difficult to attract smart people

That's a documented bullshit, with a high salary you don't attract "smart" people, you attract people attracted to the money

Look, a "smart people" contacted him to offer his help for bare minimum compensation; that defeats your point

Not on the premise of merit, and your take is valid for every jobs, it's the definition of a job

I agree with everything else you said

Computer science is hard. Why would someone spend their whole life studying, being sucked into a world of machines, sacrificing social life and friendships to be immersed in a job that doesnt pay well? High end software isnt about maintaining a website after getting a pdf certification from a boot camp. Its real complex and difficult.

Trickle-down economics? That’s not exactly a bolstered argument.

Now they show off their aggressiveness, power, ego, and disdain for all else - the world, employees, human beings. Now they invest in real estate and cryptocurrency, and flex by laying off employees and working them harder. What innovators.

They've become dinosaurs. Who are the next innovators? Who has optimism, vision, and drive?

I won't live the next year in the same fear that I have lived the past 4 days, and neither will a lot of good employees.

I'm fairly involved in politics and try to donate in large enough amounts to at least be a known entity to campaign managers. I had two productive conversations today. I'm fairly confident DoL will be watching BigTech labor practices like a hawk, looking for both intentional domestic labor displacement and also abuse of H1B workers. I will not be surprised if Amazon is at the center of intense executive and legislative scrutiny for the next two years.

If you are an H1B worker being asked to work excessive hours or take on new responsibilities, reach out to DoL (NOT USCIS). If you are a manager/director privy to conversations about labor force reduction and H1B status is mentioned, reach out to DoL. Better to be the whistle blower than the deposed.

But yeah, crappy employers are out there, so any H1B holder should educate themselves on their rights and the employers obligations during layoffs.

[1] https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/apple-google-tech-compani...

Sponsoring an employee on an H-1B has become significantly harder in the past few years, especially because of the odds of the lottery decreasing year over year. Another theory could just be that with the increased cost and uncertainty of attempting to sponsor an employee on an H-1B, many companies are resorting to alternatives, clearing the field for companies that have a more genuine need for H-1B workers.

1. Amazon lost $1T of valuation during his tenure

2. Continued hiring aggressively even until last month

3. Failed at most important skill of a CEO - Communication