[tgsovlerkhgsel]

I wonder when (if ever) the companies realize that demoralizing your workforce (and destroying that sector of the job market) doesn't have only advantages.

I know plenty of people that reacted with the desired fear, putting in long hours to avoid layoffs, willingness to accept lower pay because the job market sucks, etc. - but I think there are also plenty of the the mythical 10x engineers that just checked out, stopped being 10x engineers, and are just collecting their paychecks and waiting for the layoff now. And I'm not sure you can "get them back", ever.

At least some companies reacted to this with more top-down management, stricter metrics etc. which kills motivation further and leads to metric optimization. Tell a good, smart, motivated engineer that you want more AI usage, and he's going to maybe start using some AI where it makes sense, but mostly ignore the metric while trying to do useful work. Demotivate the same engineer and make clear that his paycheck depends on metrics, and he'll give you what you're asking for, except https://github.com/dtnewman/burn-baby-burn is probably not what you _wanted_...

[overgard]

Yeah, working harder to avoid a layoff in a big company doesn't really work out - by the time you know about the layoffs they've probably already made their decisions about who stays and goes anyway. Plus that higher rate of effort might be unsustainable and you end up leaving on your own accord anyway or burning out. Layoffs somewhat change the employment arrangement too for the people that stay: "we pay you the same but now you're expected to do the work of the missing people"

[EPWN3D]

This is broadly true, but there are performance-based layoffs sometimes. The trick is to know whether the next round is going to be a decimation or a restructuring.

If it's a restructuring, nothing you do will save you or condemn you. The decisions are made via spreadsheet, and it's unlikely anyone in your management chain will be involved. In fact, if you're a high performer who's accumulated a lot of compensation, that might paint a target on your back. If you're a protected class, you might get passed over to minimize the risk of legal action.

If it's a decimation, you'll probably have a good idea whether you'd survive.

The takeaway is keep your ear to the ground, maintain some familiarity with where your company spends its money and how executives make decisions, and you might be able to tell what kind of reduction is in the cards and prepare for it. And also, keep relationships up with recruiters.

[dietr1ch]

At Google the random 2023 layoffs left no guarantee that anything you do mattered. Maybe your salary or mouse click activity was wrong, or maybe your entire org was doomed already and you'd be layed off or moved to Bard (Gemini) and your old team would disappear.

[wseqyrku]

> working harder to avoid a layoff in a big company doesn't really work out

If this is where you're at in relation to your employer, that doesn't avoid a layoff, it accelerates the next round, whether or not you're in the batch is just a matter of time.

[andy99]

Read “The Gervais Principle” https://ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-t...

I think it explains everything, most companies are optimizing for “confused” - a class within the framework of people who work hard for no reason.

Not saying it’s the best but it’s certainly a way to do it, and probably becomes inevitable once the company is big enough.

I also think it closely parallels the practice of companies being actively hostile to their customers (or Pareto optimal as they might see it). Big companies would rather provide an offering that suits them, actively mistreating their customers, and just target customers that will go along with it rather than wasting time on customers that want some less profitable version of the offering.

[red-iron-pine]

This is commonly posted here, and is a hilarious read.

it's also about as valid a Freud or Horoscopes. Maybe some grains of truth, sure, but it's a view of the world filtered through old management textbooks then filtered through a comic and then filtered through the Office.

It's Dilbert meets Simulation vs. Simulacra.

[Obscurity4340]

Can you talk more about Dilbert + Simulacra?

[mlmonkey]

The problem with such a culture of fear is that the Good Ones(tm) take it as a hint and jump ship; as they're good, they have no trouble finding a job and leaving. But the Mediocre Ones(tm) know that they won't be able to find a comparable job, so they bring the knives out and it becomes a Lord of The Flies situation.

Thus the company gets hurt 2 ways: good ones leave, and bad ones stay, making the lives of everyone else miserable.

[underlipton]

You also kill the people who would have become highly-productive in the future. Their early career is defined by trauma that they learn is the norm, and they spend the rest of it reacting to real and imagined threats based on that norm.

This goes for the economy writ large. There are two generations of Americans who have been taught that housing is unstable, and that so is their paycheck, and that neither political party will lift a finger to help in any meaningful way (i.e., one that sacrifices donor sentiment and dollars). It's like the opposite of postwar Europe and Japan. How do you fix half the country not believing in your economic model?

[delusional]

> I think there are also plenty of the the mythical 10x engineers that just checked out

I don't think that should be the real fear. The real fear is those 10x engineers still putting in equivalent effort, but now having to spend mental capacity on positioning themselves for future layoffs and worrying about getting fired.

I think we greatly underestimate the performance boost there is in security. When you don't have to worry about plan b, you can be so much more efficient at plan a.

[Esophagus4]

A percentage of our 10x engineers just left.

Morale problems can be just enough to make your best people pick up the phone when recruiters call.

[ModernMech]

Never — remember, these people believe 3 things:

1) empathy is a weakness

2) introspection is a waste of time

3) move fast and break things

The only introspection will be along the lines of “we should have moved faster and broken more things”; because of (1) and (2), it can’t progress to the level of “maybe we were completely wrong in a fundamental sense”, because they just don’t perceive human minds outside of their own (they really do view us as NPCs).

[croes]

> introspection is a waste of time

Even worse, the claim it’s bad

[saghm]

> I know plenty of people that reacted with the desired fear, putting in long hours to avoid layoffs, willingness to accept lower pay because the job market sucks, etc. - but I think there are also plenty of the the mythical 10x engineers that just checked out, stopped being 10x engineers, and are just collecting their paychecks and waiting for the layoff now. And I'm not sure you can "get them back", ever.

In general it seems that companies are pretty bad about this type of logic. It's the same issue with trying to force attrition through "return to office" or similar things as a way of getting the cost cutting without having to pay severance; the people who will walk away are the ones who are have enough money to not need immediate employment (who are more likely to be from the higher-compensated members of the workforce, which in a competently-run company would be the most valuable ones) or who know they're in high enough demand to be able to find something else fairly quickly, so likely the ones who they should be trying hardest to retain. This is pretty much the exact opposite of what they actually want, which is to stop paying people who they don't need.

[SlightlyLeftPad]

Yup, I was once one of those 10x engineers who had been “amazing at the job” but now I’m just collecting a paycheck, waiting for my layoff. I’ve been completely exhausted from the hundred thousand layoffs happening. I have friends at other companies who are just getting pips despite having great accomplishments. Employers have figured out that they don’t need to pay severance that way.

[fridder]

Exactly. With the broad layoffs some companies do, you learn the company doesn’t value you, so why should you value the company?

[kermatt]

You should not.

Jobs are ephemeral, as companies consider employees to be replaceable / expendable cogs in the machine.

Keeping expectations equal makes sure all parties benefit. Companies base their decisions on revenue and cost, employees should as well.

Any past illusions that loyalty to a company has personal beneift are long since dispelled.

[hintymad]

This seems a pretty distinct corporate culture in the US. The companies pamper you in the boom, but dump you in the bust. When times are good, they shower you with perks yet when times are slightly bad, they lay you off like a replaceable line item. This is quite different from Europe or Japan, for instance.

[eli_gottlieb]

Culture my foot! It's a difference of law. American employment is "at-will", meaning they can legally fire you for "any reason or no reason", with the only asterisk being that "any reason" cannot violate civil-rights law (eg: they can't fire you for your race, sex, or age). European and Japanese law penalize laying off an onboarded, long-term, full-time employee who's already passed probation and acquired years of seniority.

[duxup]

Some high profile companies or even portions of those stink. The vast majority I've worked for in the US are NOTHING like that, but "company behaves, invests in employee growth, and treats employees nice" doesn't get picked up by the news / on social media.

In fact in the US worked for a company bought by a Japanese company and really nothing really changed and the Japanese and American company were quite similar.

[dietr1ch]

Idk, Tech did great during covid and during the RTO some people felt that from everything that changed on the working conditions since things got weird, nothing improved.

[duxup]

I don't disagree exactly but I think if you pay enough, it matters less. Meta, Amazon, those places can afford to churn through people.

Personally I work at a very small company, I make changes largely how and when I wish ... lots of freedom. In a couple minutes the fix is in production and we're all good to go. It's great.

But I don't think the folks attracted to those big companies with big pay are applying for tiny co for less money. Actually I know they're not because I'm not seeing them in interviews.

To some extent folks make themselves hired guys for top dollar and if that's the deal there ya go.

[buzzwords]

I don't think in large companies or names like Meta, the top brass actually care what the moral amongst workers are. I was at Accenture when they let a lot of people go. I watched very talented people just leave. Nothing changed. Management couldn't care less. They could always hire anyone they want/need to.

[packetlost]

That's true to a point, but Amazon is finding out the hard way that eventually the well of people willing to put up with bullshit runs dry and it becomes much harder to get actually good talent or workers.

Meta needs to be careful IMO. The subset of capable people willing to work for a company as demonstrably evil as them is not infinite.

[buzzwords]

Oh I have not heard about the Amazon issue. Can you please point me to an article or post detailing? Now I'm very curious.

[packetlost]

This [0] refers to their warehouse workers, but I've heard of similar problems during the earlier 2020s engineer hiring boom (on reddit iirc)

0: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/22/amazon-wo...

[michelb]

Plenty of people still work at Meta and are applying. Trying to get the good money, Meta on the CV, move on to another overpaying tech co, grind a few years and never have to work again.

[warumdarum]

I m also betting there are a ton of fairchildren skunkworkers walking out with some better version of the secret sauce right now. I actually expect a cambrien explosion of good, lean software after the big 4 died in the shit shell made from aixcrement.

[rglover]

"That’s my only real motivation: not to be hassled. That, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired."

[HenryMulligan]

Using that tool has gotta be a fireable offense, right?

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

Of course, and it's essentially an over-the-top parody of what's really happening: People aren't literally running the tool, but running pointless agentic queries where the primary purpose is to drive token usage up, not get actual work done.

Actually... I wouldn't be surprised if some people were actually running the tool and got away with it (or praised for getting the metric up) for a long time...

[mpyne]

If you're being told explicitly to consume tokens then leaving it running while you try to get real work done sounds value-added to me. "Don't worry boss, no one's beating our team on the token leaderboard this week..."

[thewebguyd]

Time and time again, we get shown that the folks running companies still don't understand Goodhart's law

> When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure

[smrtinsert]

Unfortunately for boards and ceos, software engineers arent dumb. If they see your bottom line explode while their workload increases and their pay doesn't, they will not give you 10x. Honestly I'm surprised if people are even giving 0.5x in the current climate. Engineers need to stop trusting big companies to get their back.

[matchbok3]

If you don't think companies realize this I suggest you talk to some leaders. It's a very obvious issue with any layoff and is why they are usually the last option.

[glaslong]

What options did they go through before the current cross-industry trend became massive recurring layoffs then I wonder