People don’t all have an equal risk of a random layoff. There’s some baseline, non-zero, random risk for everyone, upon which is added/subtracted a factor which is individual in nature.

On a team of 15 laying off 2, do you really think that the highest performing employee has an equal risk as the newest joiner or the lowest performing employee?

No, but in some ways its really worse than that. The pattern I tend to see is the most expensive for their title level gets laid off, that is to say, the oldest.

So the incentive is to relentlessly chase promotions, but not so much that you reach a level you are incompetent. But also not too slow, such that you are at the top of the compensation band for your title. Also don't plan to work in this industry til your late 50s.

Ideally the "most expensive for their title level" would be the most valuable for their title level, rather than the oldest. To the extent that there's a mismatch and salaries at some company are set by age instead of value, it shouldn't be surprising if layoffs tend to hit those on the wrong side of cost-vs-value.

The idea that, all else equal, someone should be paid more to be a 50 year-old Senior Foo than a 40 year-old Senior Foo is just wrong and, when/if implemented, could easily be the source of this apparent ageism during layoffs.

In a title-band compensation controlled org, oldest in band being highest paid is extremely common outcome, think about it. Once you hit the terminal IC level, a developer may be in that title band for a decade or more.

At a typical bank it's like..

Analyst->Associate->AVP->VP. However from VP on up, the pyramid narrows sharply. The ratio of Analyst:Associate may be close to 1:1. The ratio of Associate:AVP may be 1.5:1 The ratio of AVP:VP also around 1.5:1 or 2:1. However from there the ratio of VP->ED and ED->MD are like 5:1 or worse.

ED&MD are far more executive management type roles. Zero coding, you may run an org of 100 people.

So the earliest you hit VP might be like 28ish. But you'll find VPs that are 45 to 50 easily.

It's an up or out level. Slowly accumulating raises as you age without seeking a management role means out eventually.

Sorry. I'm not arguing it doesn't happen. (I agree that it's an extremely common outcome.)

I'm arguing that it shouldn't happen and, if it does, that would explain that layoffs disproportionately hit those whose return-on-cost is lowest.

> Slowly accumulating raises as you age without seeking a management role means out eventually.

At whatever the career level is for your org, some people should probably stop getting merit raises entirely. (If their merit isn't increasing, there's no reason their pay should be either. They could drift up as the entire market wage drifts up, but if a 10-years-at-VP is just as valuable as a 20-years-at-VP, they should be paid the same.)

I know this is an aberration during particular boom times, but there’s been a couple of times in my career (circa 2012 and 2020) where new hires were routinely being paid more than more tenured employees at the same level. It’s because large companies try to align comp to some local market benchmark, for example the 75th percentile, but that only ever applies to _new_ offers. I’m yet to experience a company that when faced with data that says there’s been huge growth in compensation year on year go through and give everyone big pay rises.

It depends on how big a company is and how their HR works. I worked at big dumb banks that gave outsize raises the year after promotion to "adjust for market rates" but then in high performance years gave negligible raises because we were all just numbers on a spreadsheet.

The incentives this create as well are perverse because performance becomes less a driver of a big raise in the short term.

In the long term of course, the performance probably drives the promotion which is the thing that gets you into the higher band in which you can be awarded random unearned raises.

However in the long term its easier to just jump ship for a guaranteed 20%+ bump than to pray for a random 10% every N years.

> I’m yet to experience a company that when faced with data that says there’s been huge growth in compensation year on year go through and give everyone big pay rises.

I have actually had a former employer do this once. I think it worked out best for those with 2-3 years of experience, some of whom got 20-25% pay rises, while those with 0 years of experience were closer to hire date and hence what the company considered market rate, while those with more experience were better at negotiating raises on an ongoing basis.