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A comment on Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs? by analogwzrd on Thursday January 11, 2024 @05:14PM (#38960118)
What does the average company spend on R&D percentage-wise?

My old company was a contract engineering company, so they always tried to staff everyone possible on projects being paid for by customers. R&D was used to develop internal tech and build expertise on new technologies so it was only maybe 10-25% of most engineer's timesheets.

Do other tech companies spend that much more on R&D?

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Re:Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs? by ryanSrich on Thursday January 11, 2024 @10:37PM (#38963355)
From what I recall, the tax credit is used for products that aren't yet available to the market.

So let's say a company needs 5 years to build some new hardware. Those 5 years of labor and expenses are all R&D.

I think that's why this is such a big deal. I could be wrong though.

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Re:Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs? by sciencesama on Friday January 12, 2024 @12:33AM (#38964299)
in general they can balloon the r&d and can have a huge tax write off !!
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Re:Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs? by mike_hearn on Friday January 12, 2024 @04:22AM (#38965883)
Tech companies routinely report nearly their entire engineering division as R&D for tax purposes.
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