| Too many of these "Company X laid off y%, what's going on?" threads. In general, a healthy emerging technology workforce should likely have ~ 20% turnover annually to stay fresh and modern. That means an average outside knowledge age of five years, which is quite long. Some percentage of that 20% should be voluntary. If everyone stays 5 years before moving on, that's 20% turnover, with people leaving in 2 years balanced by people staying eight years, a long time in software years. Some percentage really should be so-called desired attrition, helping people find a better place. It's unlikely all hires are great fits -- impressive if only 1 in 10 would be a better fit somewhere else -- so unlikely that 10% is as indicative of problems as you worry. For reasons, most firms are incapable of grappling with that day to day, so it takes adverse externalities to push them to encourage fit and upskilling mobility that should be normal. If a firm can learn to help people find better fits and bring in current outside skills as a regular everyday part of business (rather than once a year layoffs), the firm will be much healthier. // Finally, consider Postgres. ;-) |