[negamax]

Expect many more such posts and changes after many companies including Shopify shot themselves in the foot by conducting engineering layoffs.

None of the engineers were affected. Many were quickly absorbed by other companies who always had dearth of talent

I don't trust Shopify to do this properly and forever. This will be like Covid WFH. Once the tide recede companies will be back to what they are

[leviathant]

Tobi announced an AI chat assistant for Shopify merchants today. The breathless video did little to mask that this was released in the wake of laying off thousands of talented people who have gone to work elsewhere in the ecommerce space. While I do think it's fair to say they overhired prior to that, it also seems like they're falling into a pattern of over-correction. I'm sure they'll weather it long-term, but they're going to skid around a lot in the mean time.

[negamax]

Bad layoffs are extremely costly. More costly than bad hires. Shopify and others signalled to everyone that they are replaceable at the onset of a recession. The people who stayed have seen the blood.

How likely is it that the people who were not laid off will stay if economy enters a boom cycle? Not very likely. This article is a tongue in cheek admittance that they messed up. IC tracks being prioritised because people who contribute to product development in a growing tech company are much more valuable than managers.

In the coming years many managers will be forcefully moved to IC tracks and will be laid off if they aren't keeping their builder chops up to date. We have seen this happening at Meta.