Demystifying the layoffs at large tech companies

[argadorn]

2 hours ago, Pandubabu said:

Emo anna , I strongly feel she did not know.. or may be I was an idiot

Second Dey esari sari pettuko 

[telugu_fan]

2 hours ago, Pandubabu said:

Emo anna , I strongly feel she did not know.. or may be I was an idiot

general ga manager ki telisina they avoid saying anything for unpleasantness, inka worst case lo aithe i tried to retain you but just miss, kuderaledu ani kooda antaru.

Direct comparison kaakapoyina, I think "Up in the air" ani George Clooney movie lo laoff scenes ilage chupistaru.

[tryrecord]

Maa team lo people want to volunteer...as they already have other offers... elanti situations lo ela deal cheyali .... anyone has experience in such situations

[AndhraneedSCS]

Director supervisor (be it manager or even a lead) feedback lekunda usual ga teyyaru. Atleast based on what I observed so far. 

 

I have seen the managers kept in the dark but none of the team reporting to those managers were touched.

[Googlie]

12 hours ago, Spartan said:

With layoffs being more frequent in the tech industry, here's a post demystifying layoffs. This is based on my experience working in various companies and hearing stories from friends and colleagues. This post doesn't talk about any particular company/scenario specifically. 

1. The way most layoffs go is like this:

Scenario 1 : Startup with reduction in revenue growth rates needs to cut costs to preserve runway

Scenario 2 : Big company with reduction in revenue growth rates is seeing margin pressure as costs(OPEX + CAPEX) are now a higher percentage of the revenue leading to loss in investor confidence and stock price decline

CEO: “how much do we need to pay off?”

CFO: “we need to cut our burn by 20%. To be safe, we should reduce headcount expenses by 20%. We can do 18% but that’s risky and means we need to save harder on OPEX.”

CEO: “Ok, 20% it is.”

2. CEO tells all C-levels to send him a list with names to layoff that reduce  headcount expenses by 20%. Deadline: a week.

C-levels look through their orgs and pass down mandates to VPs to reduce HC expense by X%: so it all adds up to the target 20%.

• Contractors, food expenses, etc are cut first so that layoffs is a measure of last resort. 
• Key orgs can see less cuts. Orgs that are part of core revenue generating products, core infrastructure will get less targets as cutting them will disrupt core business. Experimental bets get chopped first. Companies internally close their venture capital and startup arms and consolidate key aspects of the business.
• VPs in different functions get different targets. Recruiters, sales & marketing in b2c companies, QA, TPMs, Solutions engineers, PMs, Engineers - is the order of priority for layoffs. Engineering is touched last as engineers build. A product company doing massive engineering cut is a red flag as the company will be building less in the future. 

3. VPs usually involve directors, but NOT below. Senior managers, managers usually not in the loop.

Ok, so now the list needs to be built. Now, at this point there’s usually still a $ target, not a headcount target. So how is this list built?

 

4. Directors don’t reach out to managers but identify people to fired based on:

• Poor performance reviews recently
• People working on strategic priorities vs ones that dont align
• Platforms easy to hire vs harder to hire 
• Highest costs in redundant roles / ones less needed
• People working in cost centers / long-term-bet

 

5. This is where a good director can do better for the team than random selection. Lot of directors who are checked out and dont have good level of understanding of their orgs current performance standing, will have a spray gun approach. A good director will know nuances of who is well respected, who has more spillover impact, etc.

6. HR will take a look at diversity, maternity, paternity leaves - legal challenges and prune the list accordingly.

7. The selection will really depend on what the directors and VPs prioritise and it *will* feel random. The director has incomplete information, and need to have a list by a deadline.

8. In some scenarios managers/snr managers are asked for the list by the director. Junior manager who may botch the layoff by leaking are skipped. After getting the list the director makes the call on whether to include the name of the manager in the list or not. Same goes with the director where the VP makes the call and goes up recursively to the CEO.

9. This is the overall high level way this process works. Offcourse reality is a lot more messier, there are horse trading games directors and managers have to play to protect their teams. There are several contentious meetings where things can get very heated where some of these decisions are made. 

 

[Vaampire]

11 hours ago, Pandubabu said:

It is not necessary that directors takes manager's feedback. Back in 2016 or so ,when I was a contractor I got laid off.  I know my manager well. She never knew I was being laid off. And the company was top 3 in its sector..billions of  dollars revenue company

 

Contractors layoff, fte layoff totally different. Also no mgr will say that they know it before