Furthermore, some very senior employees are in this boat: They kinda have enough savings to just retire, but were hanging on to their jobs to save maybe 10% more or whatever. Now that they're out of a job they are simply saying "Whelllp, I guess I'm now retired." and not really feeling the need to look anymore. I know someone who refused a forced return to office, and when his company tried to call his bluff, he just said "I guess I'm retired now!"

I've definitely seen some of that. Drag their feet through another vesting event. Maybe see if they can snag a severance package.

>> were hanging on to their jobs to save maybe 10% more or whatever

The amount of wealth all people need is constant. It is 1.5 x whatever they have today.

Crap, this fits me exactly.

Quite a broad generalization. Sounds like people who don't have an actual plan for their money other than to have more of it. The kind of person who retires and realizes they don't even know what to do now that they aren't striving for that $$$.

Sure, there are all kinds of people with all sorts of ideas about what retirement will be like. And from my observations, more often than not, two people with different ideas about retirement will get married to each other.

Different ideas about retirement—such as retiring with different amounts of security, different standards of living, different amounts of money donated to charity, different locations, downsizing or not downsizing the house, living in the countryside or the city, traveling a lot or a little, etc.

My impression as someone who’s not retired is that you are signing up for a new relationship with your partner once you retire, and it’s hard to know what that new relationship will be like.

I don't know. It's a big and somewhat irreversible decision from a pay and career perspective. I can certainly see people hesitate to make the plunge and maybe stretch things out a bit further even though they're pretty sure they're fine finacially.

Irreversible? If Tom Brady can come out retirement your typical tech worker will surely find it possible.

I think it sort of is unless someone is a real name that lots of companies would fall over themselves to hire. For most tech workers--not limited to developers--if you decide to hang up your cleats in your late 50s or 60s, it's probably going to be difficult to change your mind a couple of years later. Part-time consulting is probably easier though. (Probably less so at the moment.)

Lifestyle creep is a thing. You may think you have a plan, but then get a slightly nicer house and slightly nicer cars and slightly nicer vacations…and suddenly now you need 1.5x the money you planned for.

The people going after "wealth" are a minority. The majority of us are salaried people who go to work in order to have a roof over our heads, to pay the bills and put food on the table and maybe to have enough money to have some kids.

The majority of us don't actually know what we "have", because it isn't that much anyway. We do know though what we need to pay in the next 10 to 15 days(and if we somehow forget there's where anxious dreams come into play to help us out with that).

Given that the average mid level developer makes a salary and stock grant putting them well into the 1% (in USA) I find it questionable that the majority of people are "just" trying to keep a roof over their heads.

Looked to me like the OP was talking more generally, about all people.

And back to developers (I am one, but not living in the US), I don't think most of them own their place of living. I know I don't, so, yes, I have to work in order to have a roof over my head.

Well, there are property taxes, insurance, maintenance, and other things that can add up even if you have a paid-off mortgage on a house.

Perhaps your assumption that all "mid level developers" make FAANG income is a bit inaccurate? There are tens of thousands of developers across the US not making big bucks. And to be in the 1%, you need to be making north of $800K. The company I work for employees roughly 100 developers, and not one of them makes more than $150K (we don't award RSUs either).

Incorrect, it was 320k$ in 2021

You can filter out by other characteristics here: https://igotstandardsbro.com/

Just shy of $600K in 2022, based on data from IRS and BLS: https://smartasset.com/data-studies/what-it-takes-to-be-in-t...

A 1% wage with a 0.1% cost of living is still poor! Its all relative. Stocks dont mean nothing to me. Watch the stock price plummet when founders sell their stock.

There are jobs out there, I've turned down 3 (2xUS, 1xUK/CH) last year I enquired about just to keep in touch with whats on offer and gain insight into projects underway or commencing. Paying 6 figures, US onsite, UK/CH offered remote, working as many hours as I wanted. Turned them down. I think US/Canada remote is rare because of the poor internet infrastructure once you get outside of the cities, Europe has better internet infrastructure so can offer more remote work. Management styles are generally different in the US compared to Europe, with the UK somewhere in between the two regions as usual.

I think people need to understand the different parts of a global economy and realise some sectors some countries wont be or will hardly be affected by the social media downturn especially if they are prepared to work abroad and broaden their horizons.

Plenty of money in China.....

The average mid level developer has zero stock grants or equity. Most of the developers I know work for a salary and benefits and that’s it.

Top 10ish%? Yes. Top 1%? No

Double.

But sometimes that number goes to == on layoff. I’ve seen this in real life.

As a counter example, I need about 100x what I have today.

Man I need about -15x the net wealth that I have today.

FWIW in my experience the first retirement never sticks for these folks.

Sounds like my grandpa. He retired from the US Air Force when he got passed up for a colonel->general promotion... only to eventually become a high school teacher. He's since retired again, though with the multiple volunteer jobs he's doing it doesn't really feel like it lol

Moreover, the typical interview process is so ridiculously energy sapping (and poorly predictive), many of us senior devs are just done with it.

When I bail (or get axed) I’m gonna just do some indie hacking or maybe scratch up some 1099 work.

"they'd be willing to take anything."

That would apply to me too. I have 10 years in the industry but have been underpaid and have a family. My current plan if I get fired is to work at Walmart or Lowes until I can find another job.

If you're underpaid and employed the now is the time to look for that new job, not after you're fired and working at Walmart

I was underpaid. Now my skills have atrophied to match my low pay. Only about 17 years until I can "retire". I'll probably end up working at Walmart in retirement anyways.

Hate to say it, but this fits me a lot right now (sans the family part). I really need to skill-up and start looking for a new gig.

pretty sure unemployment pays better than walmart.

If you're fired, unemployment doesn't pay you anything. My company generally won't layoff and instead finds reasons to fire people.

This isn’t true in California, and I don’t think it’s generally true in other states either.

A fired employee is still eligible for unemployment as long as they were not fired because of specific misconduct. Poor performance does not constitute misconduct. Misconduct must be “willful and wanton.” (Regularly missing work or being late, stealing, fighting with coworkers, etc.)

The CA guidelines are long, but contain some useful examples and guiding principles: https://edd.ca.gov/en/uibdg/Misconduct_MC_5/

Good point. My company generally finds "misconduct" reasons to let someone go, like long lunch breaks, being late, computer use like logging into personal accounts etc. They are very lenient about a lot of stuff in practice, but the official policies are much stricter. They basically have enough policies that they can get almost anyone for violations. It's all about having many rules and unequal enforcemnt - it's much like the regular legal system that way.

You can still fight misconduct claims to UI by asserting problems with the work environment. Specific advice would vary by state. There is no reason an employee shouldn’t try.

If how the company acts in practice is different from their written rules, then anyone fired can sue the company for wrongful dismissal. Check with a lawyer.

The tough part is solid evidence supporting it.

It's incumbent on the employer to provide evidence to the UI board proving their case.

A fired employee can sue for wrongful dismissal. If this happened to your check with a lawyer, if you can show that the company had a pattern of overlooking such things, then you can get big bucks in court.

I know of people who should have been fired who were talked into quitting instead just because quitting means they can't sue. In turn the company gives the official answer "X worked here between these dates and left in good standing". Since the company always said the same thing when asked if someone worked there it wasn't a negative to the next employer, while if they fired they would have to say left in bad standing.

Of course since getting fired is a sensitive issue I won't say who. Reading between the lines in conversations and how the company acted though I'm sure that is how it worked.

Any company that states that an employee left "in bad standing" either has an idiot for counsel, or poor HR practices. Providing any information other than employment dates opens you up for lawsuits.

Which is why the company works hard to convince someone who should be fired to quit. If they fire someone and don't mention that fact they can be sued for withholding information, but if the person quit on their own terms.

Note that there is a difference between being sued and losing in court. Even if you win you still need to pay your lawyers. I've had one lawyer tell me about spending nearly a million dollars in court for a case that was about $100,000 in asked damages that the lawyer knew based on facts they would lose - but [I can't talk about this part] made it impossible to figure out how to settle out of court.

Hard to say. Unemployment has some weird rules which vary from state to state. I got laid off a few months after starting a new job, and since I hadn't been working there long my total pay wasn't very high, WalMart would have been as good. Fortunately I got a new job quick that time, but when you are out of work and don't have a lot of savings compared to your bills... Even if you have 6 months savings, seeing savings fall month by month while you just pay bills is demoralizing.

I wasn't trying to be cheeky with this. I was saying sometimes the ~40% that unemployment pays would be much better than walmart. and working there could stop your benefits.

Also, you can focus on a finding a job in your field. If for some reason you didn't want to get unemployment while you look for a job I would try to find any type of contracting job even upwork or fiverr so you can at least put Self-Employed Consulting on resume.

The company I worked for the last 7 years closed year end, and I'm a single dad with a weird schedule and self-taught (no college). I thought my prospects were bad but I got a better job for better pay at a better company, and I was totally honest with them about my skills, experience, etc during the hiring process so there were no surprises.

If you feel like you could lose your current, underpaid job I encourage you to start looking around. I wish I would have before waiting til the bitter end.

This is very similar to where I'm at. I feel like I do have skills that could be used somewhere, but i don't look great on paper, and I'm not very good at selling myself.

I guess if you are used to the security (or lack thereof) and coast-ability of large tech companies, you might be inclined to stick to the big names. However, I've recently discovered how fulfilling startup work is. Ironically, I feel more secure in my current role at a startup than I ever did at big tech. That's thanks a lot to the industry I'm in, but regardless senior devs are missing a lot if they completely discount startup roles.

Happy for you. Unfortunately, with VC money currently drying off, I know of many startups that are laying off. And I'm not talking about 10% of workforce layoffs, but more around 30%.

Just a word of advice for readers who are working at a startup: you will never be wrong by getting as close to the money as possible.

If you are at a startup and working on support tools or platform infrastructure or whatever, maybe you're indispensable. But you'd still be better off if you were doing support tools or platform infrastructure that involves revenue.

(The obvious corollary is that if you work at a startup that doesn't make money, you should find a way to make money, or move to a startup that does make money. I feel like a lot of engineers don't know this.)

I can testify of that.

Of course, your team can be considered strategic one day, then disbanded the next.

I've definitely seen some "strategic" people being shown the door over the past few rounds of layoffs, and at least two boomerangs (laid off, then rehired).

These are very confusing times.

You can always be laid off. The chances are much higher if you work on things unrelated to the core business at a startup that is losing money (or worse, not making money).

Obviously, if you're the junior hire on a team of 1,000 people doing third-derivative things that relate to revenue, YMMV.

It's also the case that things change to the point where "strategic" people become less strategic for any number of reasons (the company changes, they're "rich and tired" to use a marvelous phrase from a colleague, etc.). Under what's been normal circumstances at Big Tech until recently companies often keep such people around anyway because they're probably the sort of people who can be pretty effective fixers with a half-day of work and such people may be happy to keep collecting a bunch of money. But a lot of companies are scrutinizing more today.

The best move is startups that are profitable while being small. I went to a 13 person company out of college that was profitable when I joined. Rode that train till we got bought by a company that isn't profitable and is now doing layoffs to try and fix that. Now even so I'm still in the division that brings in more profit per programmer than almost any part of the company, but I still don't feel as safe as when we were a 50 person company that was still profitable after almost quadrupling in size.

Yep, you should definitely be wary about joining a startup in a drying industry, like B2B. Ask yourself if the customers/clients of said startup are still able to afford spending money on the product. If the customers themselves are another tech company that is struggling due to their VC money going away, probably not the best choice.

Why is B2B dying now, as opposed to previous tech recessions?

Not dying, just drying up and I'm sure there will be a resurgence. If you look at the companies doing layoffs, the majority of them cater to other tech companies who all seem to be pulling the purse strings tighter.

Different strokes for different folks. I would rather the excitement in my life didn't come from my job as much as possible.

> "and coast-ability of large tech companies"

Is this really broadly true? I worked for a FAANG for a ~year and half and was constantly over-burdened (rarely with enjoyable or challenging technical work).

I assumed outside of the TikTok "Day in the Life" PMs most folks were grinding away on build issues 50hours a week.

That feels like a very US thing to assume. EU layoffs have different contexts.