It’s just a basic part of average-case negotiations for most software jobs at a wide range of companies.
People like you, who don’t negotiate or turn down offers when they don’t include severance, unfortunately end up not getting benefits they could otherwise routinely get by negotiating and being willing to say no.
As a developer/architect in a major metropolitan city, why would I worry about getting laid off? In 20 years its never taken me more than three weeks to get another job - always paying more. My record was walking off a bad contract at lunch Monday with not even an application submitted somewhere, meeting a recruiter and having an offer at what was then a Fortune 10 company on Thursday. The only time I got laid off was when the company went under - meaning any promise of “severance” would have been moot. Even then I was laid off on Friday and scooped up by one of the company's clients and started working the next Monday.
Yes I was around for both the dotcom bust and the 2008 recession. Even then major corporations were hiring.
There is a much higher chance that I’m going to leave a company than a company is going to leave me. I’m going to negotiate pay, PTO, and even a title that looks good on my resume.
I went through a layoff once where my whole company department (about 30 people, mostly machine learning engineers with PhDs) was laid off in a big restructuring. We were all located in a major US city.
Several of my colleagues (one with two young children and a brand new mortgage) needed well over 6 months to find their next job. Few places were hiring for their skill area and _many_ companies passed on them just because having a resume gap from the layoff is an instant HR filter.
On top of this, paying for your own insurance even with COBRA is prohibitively expensive, like $600/month for an individual, upwards of $1500 for a family.
Some other teammates affected by that layoff faced really severe ageism during months of interviews before finding a job.
In other words, your comment is hopelessly myopic and I hope you never experience the kind of grim unemployment that many people face, even developers in job-heavy cities, because you don’t seem equipped to survive it.
I went through a layoff once where my whole company department (about 30 people, mostly machine learning engineers with PhDs) was laid off in a big restructuring. We were all located in a major US city.
The lay-off I did go through also involved about 30 people. This was in 2011. Everyone from developers, QA, L1 and L2 support staff had jobs lined up within a month. I suspect from the companies they went to had better jobs than they left.
Several of my colleagues (one with two young children and a brand new mortgage) needed well over 6 months to find their next job. Few places were hiring for their skill area and _many_ companies passed on them just because having a resume gap from the layoff is an instant HR filter.
This is why I focus my experience on two paths - one sort of specialized that offers better pay locally but where there are fewer jobs and the other where there are a lot of jobs/contracts but pay about average wages, ie. A bog standard generic full stack developer.
On top of this, paying for your own insurance even with COBRA is prohibitively expensive, like $600/month for an individual, upwards of $1500 for a family.
Life lesson I learned - don’t depend on CORBA. If the company goes out of business, their is no group plan to buy into. Even at full price. But yes, I thought about that. My wife has a secure government job and in a few years, will be guaranteed family health coverage for the rest of her life.
On top of this, paying for your own insurance even with COBRA is prohibitively expensive, like $600/month for an individual, upwards of $1500 for a family.
Ageism is overblown. I’m in my mid 40s. I was in my mid 30s when I first started getting serious about my career and job hopping. Companies don’t care how old you are if you have a current skillset. I also don’t try to work at the hipster companies.
In other words, your comment is hopelessly myopic and I hope you never experience the kind of grim unemployment that many people face, even developers in job-heavy cities, because you don’t seem equipped to survive it.
You mean by keeping my skills current, my network fresh, having a backup insurance plan, and having savings? Things everyone should do.
> “Companies don’t care how old you are if you have a current skillset.“
You claiming this pretty much invalidates everything else you’re saying, and makes me skeptical that you’re just lying about the other details. Nobody who has worked in professional circumstances for a while and “seen some shit” inside companies would say something as ludicrous as this.
> “by keeping my skills current, my network fresh, having a backup insurance plan, and having savings?“
Of course you should do all those things. Nobody said otherwise.
Those things don’t guarantee you’ll be hired again quickly though, not by a longshot. So negotiating severance is still a critical additional action to take over and above the other items you mentioned.
You claiming this pretty much invalidates everything else you’re saying, and makes me skeptical that you’re just lying about the other details. Nobody who has worked in professional circumstances for a while and “seen some shit” inside companies would say something as ludicrous as this.
Right. Because I mentioned “In 20 years its never taken me more than three weeks to get another job” before you mentioned ageism just in case you brought it up. Do I need to mention my experience programming on an Apple //e in 65C02 assembly language in the 80s to validate my old man cred?
If you are concerned with your job as a means of financial stability instead of your set of marketable skills and your network, you’re doing it wrong. Jobs come and go. I can honestly say that I didn’t stay up one night worried about being laid off even though I knew the company I worked for was in deep financial trouble. I had recruiters chomping at the bit waiting to place me.
Those things don’t guarantee you’ll be hired again quickly though, not by a longshot. So negotiating severance is still a critical additional action to take over and above the other items you mentioned.
How much good would it have done to “negotiate severance” successfully at the one company that I was laid off from that went out of business and had no money left?
I’ll take my chances on having a marketable skillset, and negotiating a salary that allows me to save my own money.
If you assume pessimisticly that you will get laid off and have a 3 month gap in employment every three years, all you have to do is negotiate an 8% higher than market rate and save your own money.
People like you, who don’t negotiate or turn down offers when they don’t include severance, unfortunately end up not getting benefits they could otherwise routinely get by negotiating and being willing to say no.