[meetingthrower]

So I've been a consultant and helped companies do huge layoffs, starting from the top down. The lesson is you are NEVER safe unless you are the owner of the company. I've put many a 20 year veteran who was an SVP of etc etc on the chopping block.

Also another huge risk is if you are a manager of 1 or 2 people. You are not a manager you are a layer. If you are a manager of many "managers" of 1 or 2 people this is doubley true.

While tech experts are often different, if you are an individual contributor with an absurd comp given your actual technical skills, beware.

AMA!

[SheddingPattern]

Is there anything that signals this person is high-value?

Are there any roles or departments, relevant to this audience, that are particularly safe?

I imagine you cut mostly from loss-centres as with profit centres you can tell who is making and who isn't, right?

Who hires and who do you present your recommendations to, what are their decision criteria?

Very generous of you to do this. I really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Grammar and manners

[meetingthrower]

1. Nobody is safe. But as a general rule: make the product or sell it, don't count it.

2. Loss centers are too simplistic. I mean, hr is a loss center but you still need it. But the question you should ask yourself every day is "am I making the company money today?" If the answer to that is not a clear yes, figure out how to get yourself to that point.

3. Your relationship to your manager matters. And your relationship to your manager's manager. Your job is to always make them look good. If you have conflict....well...

4. I worked for CEO. We would often (and ideally) do this from top down, where we literally reshaped the team that reported to CEO. (And fired members of the current team which didn't find a seat.) Then we would cascade the process layer by layer.

5. Because layers are choosing the layers below them, and often "pulling up" to reduce expensive and useless managers, being a good contributor really matters

6. Sometimes none of this matters. You are in a whole division that is shut down. Tough luck.

7. If you are in a company which is laying off bottom layer people without a huge reduction in middle management. Leave. It is terribly managed. Usually the "workers" are not the problem, it is the huge number of relatively useless middle and mid senior management who are much more costly. Ideally they should go first.

[a_lifters_life]

Thanks. How are tech experts/IC different? Can you explain?

Also, in your opinion what is an absurd salary?

[meetingthrower]

Well in tech you can actually be an expert IC with in demand skills that match the comp. This is vs some "strategy" head or "chief of staff" which are glorified admins that are often created when execs are empire building.

The question to ask is "am I building the product that is being sold, and is the value I add a 10x in terms of revenue?"

I hesitate to give a comp number as I've never been inside FAANG, but more inside large corp. But anything over $500k you definitely are always being looked at there.