Wall St firms I have worked at typically try to find different roles for people before marking them as at risk of a layoff. Not sure FAANG behaves the same, but from all these PIP discussions it seems not.
They encouraged those laid off to apply for open roles. But of course it read to employees as a monumental “fuck you.”
Some industries coach the employee into a different role, or help them exit more openly.
Explains the cyclical visits from Amazon recruiters on LinkedIn.
Having been past the PIP/Pivot process, certainly I don't want to return.
Like some weird inverse of the "You can't fire me, I quit!" trope.
[0] P.S.: Even if the employee left for a more prestigious role in another company, the social-circles in the old company aren't forced to acknowledge that the same way as if it were an internal move: HR will just say "they left to pursue other opportunities", and that permits the assumption that that the worker--their incompetence discovered--has fallen into ignominious chronic unemployment.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/personal-finance/best-and-wor...
In reality, our unemployment insurance is a scam of how pathetic it pays. Again, it's another example of how the middle class gets squeezed both ends, and little care expended on the actual problems.
I can see why republicans get elected - they lower taxes on my bracket so I keep more money in hand. But that's because the very policies that should help everyone don't help everyone cause of shitty means testing.
Now , when I got fired from shitty food service job, unemployment was close to in parity with what I made, so it was useful then. (I just want it useful for everyone, not just low paid.)
I can't change jobs now due to home life responsibilities and having specialized in dead tech.
I have picked up responsibilities. In the past I've filled the role of a senior dev for a year and a tech lead for another. I volunteered to be an ASC. I volunteered for all sorts of other responsibilities.
Perhaps the world doesn't work in the way that you think. It's not possible for everyone to successfully job hop, especially with a disability and home responsibilities. Just picking up responsibilities doesn't mean you'll get rewarded.
I'm sorry, I did not mean to attack, or otherwise offend you. I was attempting to say that one can look for an opportunity to work in an environment where one can feel appreciated. I'd employ a person with such experience as long as they'd know some basics. What's TLS, how does it work, roughly. What's DNS. TCP vs UDP. At least understanding of what problems are solved (or created, if you are in that camp) by Kubernetes. Docker basics. Read open source code.
Those are interesting subjects. I'm sure there is a ton of hypothetical past problems one could attempt to modernize and have fun while doing so.
It's just a free opinion of someone on the internet!
Then don’t do that?
I’ve been working professionally for 27 years and have been aggressive about keeping pace with technology. I saw what happened first hand when I didn’t between around 2002-2008 and I said it would never happen again.
For reference: I didn’t know “cloud” from a hole in the wall at 44 years old and I got my first and hopefully last job in BigTech at 46 working at AWS in the ProServe department (where I got PIPed see my top level comment)
It is completely irresponsible for anyone in tech especially with a family to not always keep themselves employable and depend on the whims of thier current employer to support their families addiction to food, clothing and shelter.
And how does a disability preclude you from getting a remote job?
And if you “can’t job hop”, would you not look for another job if you got laid off or fired or would you just give up and be on the street - homeless and hungry?
> Just picking up responsibilities doesn't mean you'll get rewarded.
I’m always rewarded for picking up additional responsibilities - if not by the current company by the next. It’s what allows me to aggressively job hop with a family and not be stuck with dead technologies on my resume.
Not everyone's life is as easy as you make your's out to be.
If you don’t make time now to upskill, what do you think is going to happen if/when you don’t have a choice but to look for a job and be stuck with in your words “dead tech”.
The difference is that if I lost this job I would then have time during the day to look for jobs or study when I would have been working.
I don't really care what will happen. My area is shitty for tech work, my wife won't move, and I'm ill suited to remote work. I'm just coasting now. There's no point in upskilling until I would know what skills the other company would want because there are so many different things they could wanting the tech changes so fast.
That’s why you do volunteer for opportunities where you can up skill on the job and while you are still employed you find another job where you can get in based on what you know and then transition
Lol so I'm in a catch 22 and your precious advice does not apply.
"That’s why you do volunteer for opportunities where you can up skill on the job"
That's not how my org works.
After a point it just becomes part of the landscape, a pervasive culture of not recognizing what good leadership looks like, and people filtering out of the industry because they're over it.
They can't discriminate against you for this.
The old model of working was that you supported 1 main app and maybe a smaller 1 or 2 that were related. These were usually in 1 stack and well documented. The new model is that teams are typical supporting 6-10 apps in multiple stacks. I'm slow when switching between apps and stacks, and without consistent exposure to a single app/stack, I won't get faster.
It's funny though - they talk a big game and even hire in Auticon contractors, but then refuse to do anything for existing employees. I assume a least some of those contractors have similar difficulties as me.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37963423
The risk/reward isn’t worth it unless you’re close to a vesting period.
That energy can be better spent looking for a new job. My granddad use to tell me to never chase after old money or old girlfriends.
fat is fat. muscle is muscle. one does not convert into another. it can be broken down into energy to be used but ultimately each cell starts from scratch.
Maybe a person is in a bad role, on a bad team, or simply doesn't have experience or skills fitting the specific requirements of that single point in time. I've been a high performer in the past. Now I'm a low performer (I'm slow) after the company has changed the way it treats teams/work and the technology shifted. My disability isn't suited to the new working style/process (or lack of). However, I do excellent work outside of my regular day to day responsibilities, like my secondary role as an ASC. My manager even said that I'd I could just speed up my regular work I would easily get the highest rating and a promotion. Hearing him say that really sucks because I unable to just speed up with my disability in the given work environment. The company/managers have made no effort in helping me find a role that works better with my skills or is impacted less by my disability. It seems there may not be any of the traditional roles/teams left. So now I fill midlevel roles and move team to team trying to find somewhere that I fit in. If I can find a place I fit in like before, then I would easily excel.
Another example was a dev on another team that I worked with a few years ago was sloppy, slow, and just all around seemed like a poor performer - and even our tech lead and manager talked poorly about him. He was even considerably slower than me. About 3 years after that he's now the head of data and analytics for our international operations.