[mr_tristan]

I see companies hiring lots of middle management during high-growth phases, as the "plan" is to have them grow their teams. And then the market changes, and headcount targets change, and all of a sudden there's a glut of managers as the headcount target is now completely different.

So, yeah, vulnerable, but mostly because we suck as an industry at understanding and managing people as well as we manage money. If we were good at it, there wouldn't be such over-hiring and layoffs that cause me to see articles like this: https://hbr.org/2022/12/what-companies-still-get-wrong-about...

[tired_and_awake]

I completely agree with this post. Additionally, any manager that is actively interviewing with a company should interrogate not only their financials but the product viability. Your job depends not just on your ability to deliver but much more so on the success of your program / product. This may be entirely out of your control.

'How would you handle shutting down this program/product?' Should be a standard question for interviewing managers.