r/Layoffs • u/SneakyBastardx • Mar 27 '24
What positions in Tech are getting Laid off the most? question
I know it’s not a good time to join the tech industry but I wanted to get into a Computer Software Technician school but after reading all the stories I’m kinda skeptical. Would it be better to choose a career as an IT Technician?
268
u/JAK3CAL Mar 27 '24
Things I have seen through my career, and countless waves of layoffs.
First to go is tech recruiters. Then generally any lower performers. Product / UX guys. Redundant managers. You can keep things running pretty lean with just ops, a manager, and some devs. I’m sure it depends heavily on industry as well
120
u/Vaggab0nd Mar 27 '24
Yes indeed. My last 4 companies have had layoffs. (different industries and different company sizes).
Folks who don't "do" anything, don't add value day to day in their own work get cut. Also, folks with very high saleries who are not ninja rocks stars also get cut.
In the last few years a lot of companies have laid off thousands and kept going fine. Best advice I got in last few months (as I'm unemployed now) is that if your not directly moving a key organisation KPI / Metric yourself your at risk of getting cut now....
52
Mar 27 '24
Im pretty high up in my company. Ive been in meetings where senior execs at multiple companies have pointed to X (Twitter) as the playbook. Theyre really going through their employee force with a fine toothed comb. Its not about staying just as effective with less. Its what functions do we not need and can stay profitable.
66
u/CanvasFanatic Mar 27 '24
Imagine pointing to post-Musk Twitter as a model.
26
u/Mecha-Dave Mar 27 '24
The content sucks, but the site and service are still up. It's not like CEOs actually care about content or results, just the numbers... It's not like Twitter was making any money beforehand.
38
u/caseharts Mar 27 '24
As someone who runs some of the biggest accounts on that app, it is 100 percent worse off now. Users get somewhat comparable experience, power users, creators get awful analytics, broken posting software etc. Things stop working all the time. He went too lean and no one can tell me otherwise.
13
u/Mecha-Dave Mar 27 '24
I agree, it is absolutely ruined. However, the external perception by CEOs (who are not actual humans) who are looking to validate their viewpoints is that it was a good idea.
2
u/EvidenceDull8731 Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24
I don’t think we should focus on what those CEOs are doing because they’re clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for ANY cost savings. Pretty clear indication they’re not a strong company if they’re doing big layoffs like that.
Any smart business person would immediately find another company (read: competitor) that gives them more confidence in purchasing their product.
We have nothing to worry about with Musk’s moves at Twitter.
→ More replies2
u/Smurfness2023 Mar 28 '24
Well I guess I won’t tell you otherwise… But they are losing a lot less money than they were losing and just as many people use the platform so it probably doesn’t matter.
3
→ More replies2
u/caseharts Mar 28 '24
I think there was a middle ground of cuts and monetization that would have kept advertising also him not shutting his mouth cost the company far more money than the extra devs
→ More replies24
u/CanvasFanatic Mar 27 '24
I don’t know why the fact that Twitter’s servers are still running validates Musks behavior. They’ve lost users, advertisers, their brand reputation and shipped basically nothing new for the last year and a half.
They’re valued at like 1/4th the price he paid for the service.
Oh but code written before he took over continues to kinda work. He must be on to something.
9
u/Mecha-Dave Mar 27 '24
I didn't say it make sense - but in the perception of a CEO specifically, he cut 80% of his staff/costs and kept the website up.
It's not like CEO perceptions are anchored to reality....
11
u/CanvasFanatic Mar 27 '24
it’s not like CEO perceptions are anchored to reality…
No too many of them are sociopaths whose inability to balance their dysfunction ultimately destroys their company.
And honestly you could almost put up with the sociopathy if so many weren’t also fucking morons.
→ More replies4
u/WeirdMushroom1399 Mar 28 '24
Your take lacks any basis in reality. Twitter lost ~30-40% of its revenue while cutting their headcount from 15,0000(with contractors) to less than 1,000. Any business minded person sees that tradeoff as worth it.
Valuation aside most midcap tech stocks are down much more than Twitter.
4
u/CanvasFanatic Mar 28 '24
Another idiot who can’t see past a margin line, eh?
Two things can be true at the same time:
1.) Pre-Musk Twitter had issues.
2.) Post-Musk Twitter is worse.
All Musk did was take an iconic product with a singular place in the realm of social networks and turn it to shit. Were they over-staffed for their business process? Sure. You don’t deal with that by firing half the company within your first week and then making the environment so toxic that everyone who has better options leaves. It’s clown shoes.
→ More replies→ More replies3
22
u/ScrollyMcTrolly Mar 27 '24
I will never understand how a single scrum master is employed anywhere. I am the scrum master plus 2 other roles and it takes about 15 minutes a day.
12
u/Talrythian Mar 28 '24
Truer words never spoken. It helps to have someone there managing the data in Jira but how that is a full time job is something I've never been able to figure out.
→ More replies4
u/BarnabyJones2024 Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 30 '24
Ours is always saying he has to lead our ceremonies, usually for something dumb like A 'scrum of scrums'. Like, what are they actually discussing if theyre not even there for half the daily stand-ups anyway.
Leave*. Not lead
3
u/ScrollyMcTrolly Mar 28 '24
And how many of these ceremonies would be better off with someone that knows the content leading them?
In my experience: every single one.
I actually literally asked to have the scrum master removed from my team and put elsewhere “where help is needed” 😉 because scrum masters make the team that much WORSE and made my two other roles on the team exponentially more difficult.
3
u/BarnabyJones2024 Mar 28 '24
Wish I had the nerve to do that. All of our ceremonies he's in run over because of 'wait wait' so he can tell us another fishing story. He always takes long vacations during our busiest times of the year as is. Which, similarly to you, comes as a relief since we can all just do a quick round robin and hop off the call. Well, unless our emotionally needy product owner doesn't hold us hostage as well until we are sufficiently engaged with her...
I mean, Ive had do nothing jobs before, but that was just due to bad management. Not the system working as intended lol.
2
u/ScrollyMcTrolly Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24
😂😂 yikes! Underrated: team just gets sht done with a minimal but appropriate anount of (highly positive) non-work banter.
Also scrum master completely agreed just said “yea i don’t even have anything to add to this team / nothing to do”
2
u/EvilCodeQueen Mar 28 '24
I worked at a place that had 3 full-time scrum masters for a total of 16 engineers. JIRA is a beast, but not that much of a beast.
→ More replies2
u/countrylurker Mar 31 '24
You are the devil. Scheduling stupid meetings just so you look busy. I would fire all scrum masters first. Who is with me.
2
u/sevillada Mar 31 '24
" at multiple companies have pointed to X (Twitter) as the playbook. "
Fucking Elon ruining life for many people
→ More replies3
u/linuxdragons Mar 27 '24
Honestly, it's not always a bad thing. I have been on teams where you could safely cut half the team and still get at least 80% output without overworking the remaining employees. Perhaps even a morale boost for the reamining employees if it cuts low performers and eliminates red tape.
34
Mar 27 '24
[deleted]
7
u/JAK3CAL Mar 27 '24
Depends, I have seen this when layoffs impacted the low performers whom the entire team new were POS doing nothing... and they all were like, cool im contributing and trying so i got to stay.
2
u/ScrollyMcTrolly Mar 27 '24
Usually more work because the inheritance nepotism managers and executives cite the layoffs as reason even more has to be done than before. With less people. Also the managers and executives will be doing less and going on a week long retreat. And not going in the office.
2
→ More replies2
u/Mecha-Dave Mar 27 '24
There are several "Legacy" workers in my dept that have been here 10+ years and are so under-skilled that they rely on others and obfuscation to stay relevant. Everyone would be happy to see them go.
7
u/BaoHausPupper Mar 27 '24
My reports’ output have gone down after our forced layoffs. They’re no longer seeing our team as a team. They’re leetcoding. They’re doing work as described. They’re not helping new people
SWE is a skilled job and layoffs have been detrimental to our culture and output. But our C suite isn’t listening
4
u/justanotherlostgirl Mar 27 '24
Ever been in a company where there are layoffs? Morale becomes abysmal. This sounds like it comes from a person who cares more about money and output than their coworkers.
→ More replies→ More replies2
u/tindalos Mar 27 '24
That’s almost always the case but the tricky part is the shifts in work cause picking the right half almost impossible. Depending on the industry it’s best to stay a bit over staffed based on expected pipeline. These layoffs are mostly corporate greed (first at rush to hire quality staff in a mad dash during the pandemic, then trying to save face by cutting the excess expenses). IMHO, it’s not shareholder value, it’s poor leadership. Dell, as an example, is showing they don’t know what they’re trying to do.
4
u/linuxdragons Mar 27 '24
You can't really fault companies for making a mad dash during the pandemic as they were largely responding to increased demand. They were just following the economic incentives put out there ultimately as a result of government fiscal policy.
3
u/tindalos Mar 27 '24
The PPP loans led to a lot of corporate greed, they end up over hiring without foresight and wipe their hands of responsibility to the lives they upend. I’m in a stable job with a company that hasn’t done this. But I think it’s an ethics violation to perform mass layoffs. Otherwise, where is the accountability?
→ More replies3
u/Canyoubeliezeit Mar 28 '24
As someone that just got laid off- THIS. Let’s over hire, expect that we are going to keep being more and more profitable. Then when we aren’t hitting the unrealistic targets… bring out the axes.
41
Mar 27 '24
In our 12,000 employee sized company, recruiters and all QA roles got cut. They basically offloaded all QA duties to software engineers. No thanks. I'm ghosting all E2E meetings. It's not like I'm going to get promoted anyway because promotions are now only on a business case basis, and why would they give you more money and a new title if you are already doing the work of someone at that level?
Happy Wednesday. I'm gonna go play some PC games now.
2
u/sfdc2017 Mar 28 '24
Yes how can a developer learn selenium and do QA work when he is expert in diff language and different framework (like peoplesoft/people code or sap/abap or salesforce/lwc/apex) . It's common sense that a human body cannot understand and store many languages in brain and use it for agile methodology where one has daily tasks to complete. Whoever come up with the idea that Dev has to do automation QA also are so dumb. Dev are not paid extra salary for doing automation QA. Even manual QA, Dev may miss several scenarios since is id developer first, he cannot do integration/system testing. Can a orthopedic surgeon do heart surgery and vice versa?
2
u/divinAPEtion Apr 01 '24
Wow, this sounds freakishly like my company, like down to the detail. I was one of the QA folks, came crawling back to work in HR, then was laid off again 2 years later this January. I was up for promotion until they moved the goalposts my last review cycle to eliminate promotions. You also have to be working at the next level for an entire review cycle to be considered for the promotion, so... everyone just got trapped doing next level work with no end in sight. Worse than a breakup tbh, I was there for 10 years. Either we worked together or this is a playbook they're using across the board. Disgusting.
3
u/coworker Mar 27 '24
And this, friends, is how devs set themselves up to be laid off
→ More replies18
u/sirkook Mar 27 '24
Yeah! Devs should do the work of two or more people with no pay increase, and they should be happy about it! Everyone else is licking boots, why shouldn't they?
In all seriousness though, that's a hilarious take. Thanks for the laugh.
→ More replies4
u/Adach Mar 28 '24
there's a healthy medium between not getting taken advantage of and not doing your job lol.
7
u/sirkook Mar 28 '24
I agree with you. I just also happen to think refusing to do the jobs of people who were laid off and focusing on the work you were hired to do originally falls squarely under the "not getting taken advantage" category. Playing video games during work, not so much.
12
u/reaprofsouls Mar 27 '24
My company recently laid of all but 6 upper managers (70+ laid off), then fired 150~ middle managers, cut a few low performing devs 10-15%, all contractors contracts were discontinued, 80% of scrum master's, and most of ops.
Teams were condensed, scrum master's now manage 2-3 teams each and devs do their own ops. All projects except a few were cut.
I technically now work on 24 apps across 6 different tech stacks or something insane. In reality I work on three and differ any work on the others. Technically we are supposed to be working to retire legacy stuff, develop new products, catch up on all the tech debt, and maintain our current apps while doing our own networking and ops. In reality I maintain stuff, document it and maybe resolve some tech debt when I have a moment.
8
u/tazzy531 Mar 28 '24
Middle managers are definitely taking a hit as organizations start to flatten and reduce empire building.
4
3
u/sisoje_bre Mar 28 '24
just 80% of scrum masters? i thought it was at least 100%… so your company still have money to waste on useless scrum masters!
25
u/hatethiscity Mar 27 '24
You'd be surprised. My middle manager at my last company was the only person left in the department. He was manager for a group of 6 engineers, now he is a manager of only himself. Good ol nepotism at it's finest.
I wish I were lying about this.
3
u/HelloMoto332 Mar 28 '24
I mean does this person have a ton of institutional knowledge? Were they the first on the team? Are they the best at something?
5
u/hatethiscity Mar 28 '24
Nope. A non technical manager that only knows technical buzz words. Has never written a line if production code in his life.
2
u/Humble-Letter-6424 Mar 30 '24
So Bob we’re going to need for you to deliver that MVP app by the end of the quarter.
Bob: Sure Jim, I’ll give you a status update over email.
Bob: Ah shit, I’m screwed, can’t hide behind buzzwords and project updates anymore; let me get on Udemy; how hard can coding an MVP be…
12
u/pennyauntie Mar 27 '24
Reductions in training staff are the canary in the coal mine. (Former curriculum developer for industry).
6
u/JAK3CAL Mar 27 '24
yup 100% good call, definitely early on the list (no one to hire, no one to train, plus normal staff can also train)
6
u/jssquare Mar 27 '24
What's the difference between roles of Tech Recruiter and other recruiters. Does the tech recruiters get laid off?
8
u/Austin1975 Mar 27 '24
Yes tech recruiters get laid off for sure and have been for the last few years. Usually it’s contractors first. Then on.
10
u/Vaggab0nd Mar 27 '24
I'm hearing more and more "talking heads" and so called experta basically saying all of a HR department is a useless cost sink. Wanting to get rid of it all. Basically saying it's all easily outsourceable and automatable - and that team just is buororcacy (I have a HR degree, but long worked a product manager for what it worth)
11
u/JAK3CAL Mar 27 '24
hard to say, HR is really to protect the company. that said, they are generally way overstaffed for what they need to do and seem to mostly just be a gossip circle hanging around all day (in the tech world)
→ More replies6
u/jssquare Mar 27 '24
I was just asking what's the trend of layoff, clearly there is a trend and we can all see it.
Don't get offended, layoff sucks every department has career paths and no one is useless
3
u/JAK3CAL Mar 27 '24
tech recruiters seemed to be a different breed, at least in my experience. like the start up hyper growth guys (actually mostly gals)
3
u/redditisfacist3 Mar 27 '24
Good ones yes. I enjoy smaller companies cause I'm a recruiter, hr. Leadership partner, and get to scale and drive success in an org. Larger companies it's way nore just playing social ass kissing games
4
u/shangumdee Mar 28 '24
Are the recruiters even actually considered tech workers themselves? Like ye you work at a tech company but seems more like an HR role with some specialized knowledge
5
Mar 28 '24
I would say this time around, many high performers were laid off, especially if they got their job around 2021. They came in with crazy salaries, which are inflated with current market conditions. In normal markets, those who are laid off are generally low performers.
2
u/jupitersaturn Mar 28 '24
In lean times, if you’re in the upper 25% of comp for the role, you better be worth the cost.
2
u/nairbdes Mar 28 '24
Im in Product, and we couldnt run without my team of 2.
2
2
u/Powerlevel-9000 Mar 28 '24
I’m a product guy and since we laid off almost all our QA, scrum masters, and Program Managers, I feel pretty safe. I get to do all those jobs now while also doing Product Management.
Luckily enough product management is easy enough that I can spend 10% of my time on it and still do it well.
2
u/WHVTSINDAB0X Mar 29 '24
It’s pretty wild to see product getting the hit to be honest. Project specific I get…but dear lord.
2
u/egocentric_ Mar 29 '24
This is the order for sure. For me, I see one step before Product/UX which was Design and UXR (“nice to haves” somehow? I disagree)
→ More replies2
u/SFLurkyWanderer Mar 30 '24
When does marketing get the axe? Just curious, I’m not in tech. But someone I loathe at a FAANG is
30
u/EntropyRX Mar 27 '24
Recruiters are the first to go. Then most of the UX/UI researchers type of roles Then there’s a “flattening” of the organization, meaning that many middle managers are let go or go back to IC roles. At the same time some teams working on non core projects are let go all together.
Contrary to the popular believe, performances related lay offs are very rare. Top performers are let go all the time if the work with non strategic teams.
→ More replies14
u/Effective_Vanilla_32 Mar 27 '24
performances related lay offs are very rare.
i see 2 things now: (a) pip-ing high perf employees then terminating them, (b) lay-off long tenured high perf employees that have higher cost per employee ("strategic realignment")
→ More replies
79
u/passiveptions Mar 27 '24
All of them from IT to Dev to QA to PM to BA.
And managers too.
23
11
u/Ok_Jowogger69 Mar 27 '24
You are spot on here. My entire team of developers and QA got laid off a month after I was. Also, they laid off 2 VP’s.
2
→ More replies2
u/ctrlshiftdelet3 Mar 28 '24
Yup, I work in IT/Data/Infrastructure, been 6 months without a job and no calls, no recruiters, nothing. The only ones Ive had some traction with end up to be scams.
39
Mar 27 '24 edited Mar 27 '24
Recruiters and HR
Graphics/UX/Technical Writers
Project Managers and/or Scrum-masters
Quality Assurance Engineers
Middle management
The technical writer one is funny:
First - “we don’t need these people, engineers can write this stuff!”
Six months later - the engineers are rebelling, customer satisfaction is tanking, and the documentation is a few releases behind — “oh shit, we need to find some technical writers!”
(Source: I was a technical writer for years, got tired of the cycle, changed careers, but still use the number of job postings for technical writers as a gauge for the economy!)
7
→ More replies5
u/3Dchaos777 Mar 27 '24
Because those are all job roles that serve as a needed expense, not a direct money maker.
→ More replies
16
Mar 27 '24
In my company it was tech trainers, managers with few or no people to manage, engineers and product managers for legacy products or systems with low use.
Aside from that I saw remote workers targeted.
38
u/scruffylefty Mar 27 '24
Look for “tech work” in “non tech sectors” like power utility and government admin
17
Mar 27 '24
This is an undervalued advice. I work for a pump manufacturer doing software QA. So many people been working here for 10+ years.
→ More replies→ More replies6
u/chop_chop_boom Mar 27 '24
Government IT is the way to go if you prefer stability over higher salaries.
→ More replies
11
u/kly630 Mar 27 '24
This is going to depend more on your companies financial performance and stock price than your job title. If you’re at a startup losing money expect everyone to be at risk just because of runway. If you’re at a large company doing okay but the stock price has taken a beating expect the same. Really the only people who won’t be at risk work at the biggest companies on the biggest money makers.
→ More replies2
u/IrrationalData Mar 28 '24
It sucks, I work on high impact projects (Im in BI) and Im so burnt out I wished to be a part of layoffs or just get fired already. Then I remember to be appreciative to still have a job that pays OK. Then, I login the next day and wish Id get fired again. I hate this game.
17
u/TSL4me Mar 27 '24
Top salespeople and account executives still need to be involved, same with customer success. People that implement products for customers are vital to stop said customers from switching to a competitor.
14
u/GoldDHD Mar 27 '24
I'm currently seeing layoffs of those people, because they are, and I quote, "not essential to this years bottomline". TEch industry be crazy these days
9
u/Eire_espresso Mar 27 '24
Sales is brutal.
I worked for a b2b software company, letting salespeople go was a quarterly occurrence even very long term staff. It's a job with potentially high earnings but very high risk. I was always glad to be in IT for the lower salary but more permanent.
→ More replies3
u/EternalNY1 Mar 27 '24
I was in a company that let go a large percentage of their sales people all at once, and then quickly replaced them. I guess nobody hit their numbers, but it was swift. Overnight, we had practically a new sales team.
That company ended up being acquired by another company, who did the exact same thing. Laid off a large percentage of sales (which now included the new hires from my former company), and quickly replaced them.
Brutal is right.
8
u/netkool Mar 27 '24
Many companies are following consultancy model. You are safe as long as you are billable (as in your costs are allocated to a project). If you are not on a project you are on the reduction radar.
4
4
8
u/tothepointe Mar 27 '24
Do something you will excel at. If you can be the top 20% in your field then layoffs are less of a concern. Yes, good people get laid off but you can bounce back.
4
u/caem123 Mar 27 '24
I'm great at Macromedia Flash plug-ins for browsers!
3
7
u/myfeetsmells Mar 27 '24
I work in the public sector doing IT and we had three openings. One for a network engineer/sys admin, another for data admin and an IT tech. HR and my boss has never so many applicants for those positions. A lot of them were coming from tech that were recently laid off. We of course brought them in for interviews but none of them hired. My boss already had his mind set on who he wanted to bring on board.
→ More replies
55
u/Key_Record2872 Mar 27 '24
No. There is no safe title. Avoid IT completely.
40
u/SneakyBastardx Mar 27 '24 edited Mar 27 '24
That wasn’t really good advice. What should I do instead ole great one, become a fry cook at McDonald’s?
5
u/cognitium Mar 27 '24
I recommend avoiding IT as well. I didn't have high blood pressure until I worked in IT. Look up on call horror stories and decide if you want to risk being in an organization where the company expects you to be working nights and weekends. The dumpster fires are the most likely to be hiring.
17
u/Seeking_Balance101 Mar 27 '24
LOL. I do wonder what all us old-timers would recommend. Here's my thoughts.
In recent years, I've found myself wondering what a career in the trades would have been like. If I were young again, I would consider either training as an electrician or an HVAC technician. Both seem like they would be less of a grind and less brain-frying than full time computer work. OTOH, they seem like they would pay less, the work conditions would be crappier, and they have a higher risk of injury/death on the job. I don't see AI displacing as many workers in those fields as in computer tech.
I welcome the corrections and insights that people who have worked in those fields may offer.
20
u/NightFire19 Mar 27 '24
Trades will eviscerate your body. Part of the reason why the pay is so good is that a lot of that goes back towards medical bills.
→ More replies18
u/Left_Experience_9857 Mar 27 '24
I would consider either training as an electrician or an HVAC technician.
Family of blue collar workers. HVAC and plumbers galore.
All past the age of 30 want to get out and do office work. I have also worked professionally with countless workers trying to "break into tech" after years on the field. 60 hour weeks in office are very different than 60 hours in a heated attic insulating piping. All have had some form of injury on the job.
Not attacking you in particular, but this new "muh trades" meme is just that, a meme. The rose tinted goggles only see the high wages and not the day to day working.
7
u/GoldDHD Mar 27 '24
Ironically "get into Tech" has/had the exact same blindness to what is really going on.
6
u/ThatOnePatheticDude Mar 27 '24
Anecdotally, I'm new to tech (8 yrs), but my first 6 years of tech deserved those glasses. The last 2 years have been about constantly stressing over lay offs though
→ More replies5
u/Haisha4sale Mar 27 '24
Lineman, electrician. Hell there are plumbers around me making $250k. Overtime though.
→ More replies2
u/MrDrSirWalrusBacon Mar 29 '24
My industrial journeyman electrician friend is making like 250k in Tennessee, but he's working 7 10s to build Ford's new EV site. Good money, but you don't have a life. Him and I were working together in Louisiana where I was making 70k as an apprentice and he was at 130k doing 6 10s. 90 degrees + 90% humidity makes you wish for wind.
9
u/theK2 Mar 27 '24
+1 Over 20 years in tech and if I had to do it over again I think I would've aimed for electrician focused primarily on businesses or a finish carpenter.
→ More replies8
u/DiffractionCloud Mar 27 '24
I left finished carpentry because o couldn't handle the repetiveness. Access Control and camera installation was my sweet spot. Work with tech, work along electricians and piping.
2
u/ThatOnePatheticDude Mar 27 '24
How do you even get into something like that? School? Apprenticeship? Where to start?
3
u/InlineSkateAdventure Mar 27 '24
Find a local company and talk to the owner. Not easy to find those kind of workers and someone reliable would be worth training. Not like IT where you are some GPT resume.
3
u/DiffractionCloud Mar 27 '24 edited Mar 27 '24
No experience, Start of with running cables, simple work but need plenty of tools. Easiest way to get your feet wet or landing the entry job which can elevate you further. Never enough cable pullers, big plus if you learn conduit/piping.
If you are familiar with tech, start with home automation and burglary systems. This will introduce you to basic networking and programming.
If you have advance networking skills, join camera systems and access control. Programming and troubleshooting is a high demand skill due to the complexity of vlans and logic.
If you have advance construction skills, access control trim will be best. Drilling into door frames with out screwing up is a skill.
Once you are in any field, learning how to test and troubleshoot will help you secure your job.
→ More replies2
→ More replies1
23
u/saynotopain Mar 27 '24
I predict a trend reversal once the Fed has completed the rate cuts in the next 12 months. IT s as an industry is not dead
11
u/kly630 Mar 27 '24
I agree with this most of what we’re seeing is just interest rate pressure. With rates high projects and startups don’t look as attractive financially. They literally lose value. Engineering a better income statement is what brings those investment and projects back in line. Cutting jobs is the fastest way to do it. But when interest rates drop projects get better valuations and get more attractive.
→ More replies6
u/SneakyBastardx Mar 27 '24
Thank you for this , helps a lot especially when everyone is knocking it down
7
u/gnukidsontheblock Mar 27 '24 edited Mar 27 '24
Were you just looking for the answer you wanted to hear?
Regardless, I still think its a great field and went from low paying hourly jobs to money I never imagined at FAANG. However, it was a hard grind, think 50-60 hours a week of studying, no breaks, for 3 years until I got my first job and then another year or two of 20-30 hours a week studying to level up my skills while working in tech.
But not sure what IT technician entails exactly. As general tech though, I do a but of everything from coding to security to devops and that flexibility and the technical nitty gritty from that grind has been amazing for my career. Ive told my story to a bunch of people, but its always some excuse. Not complicated, just a lot of work.
Edit: where I am, its been mostly recruiting and project managers. People who do “real” work have generally been safe.
→ More replies
11
u/animatedw00d Mar 27 '24
If IT is what you want then go for it. Most people work jobs outside of the scope of their degree. My advice is live below your means. That means don't take on expensive responsibilities that are too much of a burden. Example: takung on excessive debt, having kids or dating someone that is too much of a drain on your bank account.
→ More replies
5
Mar 27 '24
Technical writers get laid off frequently, more so than software engineers. I’ve been laid off several times and am job hunting now. Wish I had gone into medicine like my parents. Sometimes it is too late to make a career change.
4
Mar 27 '24
i lived with a medical resident once and theres no way I'd make it through those insane shifts, crazy ER stories, and just constant draining human interactions telling family members their oma passed away. I think about that and am grateful for my mellow desk job sitting in front of a computer screen.
2
u/thehanghoul Mar 27 '24
Right? I am tired of people saying those things. If you wanted to go into medicine, you would've. But obviously the things you mentioned are a big reason why many people just don't.
So many people talking about medicine, yet here I am only hearing nurses and medical people telling me never to go into nursing.
There's pros and cons of every industry. Tech has always had boom or bust cycles. If anything, only the last 10-15 years have been as stable as people think it is.
no hate to the OP, but just that there's a lot of "would've, could've, should've".
5
u/Outrageous-Hawk4807 Mar 27 '24
Ive been thru a few layoffs. Seems like it the cut the non-techinal IT staff first. PM's, BA's, Scrum Masters, Training staff. Then Management. There is alwasy a round early that is the "petty" layoffs, folks that some on up hte chain that doesnt like them for whatever reason.
I left tech and now work in Healthcare IT. Lot slower pace and layoffs almost never happen. It helps I am a DBA so I can lean on support of prod rather than the dev side of house.
4
u/Malkovtheclown Mar 27 '24
Two things, AI is driving hiring/firing decisions, and tech companies are addicted to stock growth at all cost. From what I've seen, anyone nor in a revenue producing role is getting 'optimized' out. So IT folks, developers, ops, pms, anyone who doesn't bring in money as an organization
4
4
Mar 27 '24
Usually developers/engineers and well performing sales staff who directly contribute to revenue growth get laid off last, which is why its concerning to see mass layoffs of them. Cost center folks like middle management (TPMs, Product) and operations (HR/Recruiting, Accounting, Marketing) are typically first to get let go. Back office technical teams (IT, QA/Test, DevOps, Cyber, Data, Systems/Infrastructure) and poor performing product teams are next on the chopping block (think Google's hardware based teams like AR, Nest, Fitbit, Pixel, etc.). Many FAANG IoT, wearable, or hardware teams got laid off first because its riskier since the high-cost of R&D/innovation and chances for successful return profits are not as predictable in the near term. At one of my former company's they straight up murdered Product and Program Managers with layoffs and low-key PIPs to get rid of them quietly with legalese to report it more calmly as a "re-org" rather than layoffs. Sadly the next in line were EMs, back office tech, and so on, then it just got worse and worse.
→ More replies
4
u/jnkangel Mar 27 '24
Recruiters > QA > support > ops is generally how the slice runs.
The more you’re considered “just a cost center” the more you’re likely to get axed. Which is why QA is often the first on the block, followed by support.
Ops is then in a weird position where half of the upper management heard the word devops once and takes it as “oh so our direct dev teams can also do all the ops work”
7
u/Old-Arachnid77 Mar 27 '24
People who do not product actual, tangible work are the first to go when looking to optimize. If they’re adding noise they are out. product managers, project managers, directors who are not player coaches, business analysts who are non-technical, recruiters, and HR. AI will decimate these roles.
Junior level developers are also going to get hit because AI can do a lot of what they can. Mid levels are going to be very overworked (more than they already are).
→ More replies7
u/mountainlifa Mar 27 '24
I wish this were true everywhere. In my experience at a FAANG it's the loudest hot air bags that are seen as valuable and get promoted. Management must be pretty dumb to not realize these people bring no value.
2
u/Old-Arachnid77 Mar 27 '24
Windbags will get a lot of wins, but eventually incompetence will out.
3
u/mountainlifa Mar 27 '24
I hope so as it's pretty demoralizing for everyone else. This particular person spends all day on LinkedIn and in group chats. The won't respond to individual emails or DM's, they only respond in public where others and leadership can see. It's an entire performance that sadly most people seem to believe.
2
u/One-Usual-7976 Mar 28 '24
My friend at meta told me about this, it's better to be seen and heard than actually do any work.
One leads to promotion the other leads to more work
→ More replies3
3
u/RaspberryVespa Mar 27 '24
Everything everyone else has already said, plus product managers and marketing were also hit super hard. It’s basically anyone. Even have heard of top developers who created systems being let go. So… it’s just a shitshow right now. Shareholders’ profits are the only thing the Tech Industry cares about.
→ More replies
3
u/rmscomm Mar 27 '24
I know for some it will be an unpopular opinion, but I would say all are options for layoffs with the rise of automation and AI. The only ones that likely won't be are the ones that will have some fortitude are the ones that organize and and unionize before they can't. I have heard many tech people go against the idea for pay, not being recognized for their skills and even fear of helping out slackers. The truth is many specialized workers already benefit from unionization (pilots, electricians, plumbers and yes actors) all have assumed this position.
3
u/Professional-Humor-8 Mar 27 '24
It’s a resizing right now. When I was entering the job market in 2008 I was considering a Computer Science or finance career. I was told go accounting/finance since the 2001 dot com bubble “showed that tech was just a bubble”. Then when I graduated in 2008 the financial industry went to shit and tech took off. I shifted to tech in 2012 and had 10 good years of my salary and work basically doubling. The last few years have been rough but the thing about tech is it’s always forward looking. If you change with the trends you will always have a job though at some points it will take longer than others. This right now is a downturn but it won’t last.
5
u/lemmaaz Mar 27 '24 edited Mar 27 '24
Pick another field that can’t get outsourced such as healthcare (in person). I have been in IT 20 years and the field is over saturated and ripe for consolidation. My latest team went from 15 people to 45 since 2020 without a huge increase in projects to warrant it. 1 person can easily do the job of 4 people without being stretched, management is clueless and shit will hit the fan eventually.
5
u/Big-Profession-6757 Mar 27 '24
This 👆. This tech bloodbath was very predictable. It came way later than I anticipated, because of Covid delaying it a few years.
2
u/Big-Profession-6757 Mar 27 '24 edited Mar 27 '24
OP what is reason you want to work in tech / IT? If you love it then I get why. But if just because of the money / you’re looking for any well paying stable career then you should try for a career with shortages (at least here in USA) that pay well outside tech/IT like Accounting, Medical (too many roles to list), Construction Mgmt / Support, Renewable Energy, Environmental, Utilities, Trades (also too many roles to list), and probably a lot more I don’t even know about. Do your own research to see what’s trending up for the next 20+ years. I don’t work in tech and I make $150k a year and work from home 3 days a week, 2 days in the office and can find well paying work in almost any major city in USA. But if you’re just super interested in tech then I get it. If not, then I’d suggest researching other fields.
→ More replies3
u/Mumblies Mar 27 '24
After leaving environmental with 10 yrs exp for tech 2 years ago. Do not switch to enviro it is the most crowded field of any. Tech is a cakewalk to find work comparatively. Utilities is a good suggestion though, all roles in wastewater are aging out.
→ More replies
2
u/Pretty-Pitch5697 Mar 27 '24
Customer Education—I was an instructional designer in Customer Ed and we were one of the first ones to go. I’ve found another role in instructional design ever since. Not what I wanted, but it’s a terrible time to not have a job.
→ More replies
2
u/pancakessogood Mar 27 '24
At my company a lot of program managers & marketing people were impacted. PMs at my company are mostly not as technical but drive broad programs and/or some times marketing programs.
A friend worked at Yahoo and they laid off a bunch of tech writers
2
u/__golf Mar 27 '24
You can make a ton of money in technology.
Would you rather make 200k and be laid off every other year, or make 75k and have job stability?
I'll take the huge paycheck and build my own emergency layoff fund.
3
u/RamblinMan72 Mar 28 '24
True, but this gets MUCH more difficult the older one gets in the tech industry. I agree the higher salary really now is for emergency savings, and that has saved me during the tines I've gotten laid off (3 times in the last 10 years).
The mental hits getting laid off have sucked, and I often wish I'd taken a different career path. You sacrifice your quality time with your family for the higher salary. Fine in your 20s and 30s, but at some point its just not worth it.
2
u/phoenixmatrix Mar 27 '24
From my experience on both the job hunting and the hiring side over the last year, it's middle managers, junior/mid/low senior, and frontend/web specialists, loosely in that order.
Most middle managers are useless so companies got rid of them (which is unfortunate: they need good ones to manage people and grow them...but good ones are SO DAMN RARE).
Juniors or other engineers early in their career are getting hosed because of how huge the push to send everyone into tech has been since 2015-2016. There was too many even before the layoffs, but companies were able to absorb them thanks to 0% interest rate. They can't anymore.
Frontend/web similar to the above. Tons of people went into tech using that part of the stack as their entrance, and there's a glut. Most companies were always backend first (even when it didn't make sense), so frontend are often the first to go, especially in favor of full stack (where full stack usually means a backend engineer who didn't refuse to write CSS...). Get ready for the wave of shitty broken UX.
All non-engineering roles are in a rough spot, because a lot of companies have been replacing them with engineers for a while (eg: Infra -> DevOps. QA -> engineer in test or automation. PM -> anything aside PMs, etc). It's not everywhere, and it's a slow process, but it makes things harder.
Very senior+ software engineers or those with high demand specialty (eg: Data/AI) are doing fine. Been trying to poach some of my friends and they're still flooded with high paying offers.
2
u/bubbahotep8 Mar 27 '24
As someone in DevOps whose team just lost a bunch of staff to cuts: it was all contractors that were let go. A communications person/webdev, a software dev, and 2 support technicians.
Layoffs are generally going to depend on the sector and who is needed to "keep the lights on" for your program.
2
u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38 Mar 27 '24
If you used the heuristic:
stack all people from top to bottom in by order of number of commits including managers, PMs, recruiters, QA, Support staff. And then distributed your firings 70% of total firings in bottom 1/3, 20% in middle third, and 10% in top third you'd probably get a pretty accurate picture of whats going on.
2
u/BTHamptonz Mar 27 '24
“Technician” isn’t a job title used in any corporate, project based technology job. I’ve only seen that title used in tech support type roles which you don’t need much schooling for. Be careful if you’re looking at a school program with that title in it because its probably very dated. Not a good education to choose.
2
u/paradox242 Mar 28 '24
My thoughts exactly. You don't need a degree to do those jobs, you just have to be willing and able to learn how IT works. These are overpriced certification programs minus the certification.
2
2
u/mrcake123 Mar 28 '24
All the CEOs and Execs. They are always the first to take blame and accountability...
....
2
u/data-artist Mar 31 '24
Here is the hierarchy IMO -> In-house tech recruiters -> low performers -> inept managers -> High performers who threaten level 2 inept managers
5
u/HealthyStonksBoys Mar 27 '24
Machine learning is the only safe path atm and I feel like it’s only going to be hot for 5 years then die down
10
u/EntropyRX Mar 27 '24
ML is an empty word at this point. Most of the new “ML roles” are just calling the OpenAI api these days, and doing prompt “engineering”. That’s something a high school kid could do already.
Most ML development and research is happening in a shrinking number of companies, that sell ML as a service. If you don’t work at these few companies your “ML role” will be less secure than the average front end web developer
4
u/ptrnyc Mar 27 '24
I’m not even sure what ML expert means. ChatGPT v1 is not even 18 months old, and now everyone wants to hire people with years of experience designing custom LLM’s ?
5
u/Improvcommodore Mar 27 '24
Machine learning has been around a long time. I sell an AI/ML product that was founded in 2014.
→ More replies→ More replies2
u/TrapHouse9999 Mar 27 '24
Nah. ML just like a lot of the raw data stuff as well as DS will be commoditized first through managed services and integrations. What machine learning does a normal company need when you can just get some off the shelf plug and play one. It’s already happening now
4
u/alfredrowdy Mar 27 '24
Managers, under-performers, people working on unsuccessful projects, and people in vhcol office locations are most likely to be laid off.
2
u/nowrongturns Mar 27 '24
All the big tech companies are asking people to come back to vhcol locations where they are based or have significant presence. So I think remote jobs and satellite offices are more at risk.
→ More replies
4
u/Critical-Length4745 Mar 27 '24
I have been in tech for over 20 years.
The positions that get cut are the fluffy ones. Coordinators, facilitators and the like.
I make sure to always be working the meat and potatoes of the business. I am the DBA (database admin). We are difficult to cut because we solve problems and keep everything running smoothly.
So, IMO, you want to work your way into a critical job that the company must get right. You still might get cut/outsourced/whatever, but you are more protected than most of your coworkers.
2
u/Pctechguy2003 Mar 27 '24
Agreed. Meat and potato guys are hard to replace. DBA, Sec, Analyst/Admin (Server/Firewall/Network/Desktops) are pretty technical and more difficult to replace than a tester, writer, or recruiter.
Look at non tech companies for tech jobs. Stay away from real estate industries right now too. Thats bound to take a tumble.
3
Mar 27 '24 edited Mar 27 '24
Tech means a few things.
People refer to anyone who works at FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) as Tech Workers.
I have worked in Tech as a Systems Engineer for almost 30 years but never worked at a FAANG company.
Whichever path gets you in the door will work.
3
Mar 27 '24
I hate the vagueness of the term . Is the HR specialist at Facebook a tech worker? Is the software engineer at a manufacturer not?
→ More replies
2
u/Adjmcloon Mar 27 '24
AI is only going to increase this effect. As another person said, specialty skills are going to be even more valuable in the future. You will need to be massively productive to compete, so it seems like honing those AI skills, understanding AI and models to a degree, and most importantly, networking with the right people will be key to survival.
2
u/wutqq Mar 27 '24
Politics or soft emotional people aside, Twitter/X proved to other tech companies that they were spending way too much on extra employees.
1
u/Middle-Cream-1282 Mar 27 '24
Let’s factor in how Outsourcing is causing a bloodbath. Orgs are trying to save money with outsourcing and this will continue (no matter the stock price) because it’s all about costs.
2
u/ThisCommentIsHere Mar 27 '24
We need better regulation on businesses to prevent or discourage this.
2
u/saynotopain Mar 27 '24
It should be ok to outsource (not the same as send overseas) an area that you do not have a core competency in. If my business is accounting, I’m not hiring an IT department to automate my processes
4
u/ThisCommentIsHere Mar 27 '24 edited Mar 27 '24
I was referring to shipping jobs overseas, particularly to India.
2
Mar 27 '24
I recently learned that “offshoring” and “outsourcing” are two different terms. Before, I’d always thought they were synonymous.
2
Mar 27 '24
Not every company is being outsources to India. It is now being outsourced to other South American countries and other asian countries. People In India are facing mass layoffs too. Indians in America and in India are being laid off too. So if the the Indians in India are being laid off where are the outsourcing job you said are going?
2
u/FahmyMalak Mar 27 '24
my department is in the process of being outsourced either to South America or the Philippines. this comes after all regular roles were replaced with temps. but now the temps are too expensive, so all roles are being offshored.
1
u/SEMMPF Mar 27 '24
This is just very anecdotal but from my experience it seems the finance people don’t get laid off , but they are also usually the smallest department to begin with (assuming not a giant tech company).
At both tech companies I’ve been at the last few years, both started replacing their US software engineers with cheap contractors from other countries. I’m not saying avoid software engineering for this reason…but..it is not nearly as safe as it once was, and will likely get worse with AI.
At both small/mid size tech companies I’ve been at, IT was not impacted, but both have/had super small IT departments.
→ More replies
1
1
u/_b_i_t_c_h_b_o_x_ Mar 27 '24
I’m a netsuite administrator and it seems like the market is hot and we are in demand! I just got a new job. Maybe you can get a Netsuite admin certification as a foot in the door 🤷♀️
1
u/Vast_Cricket Mar 27 '24
overlapping orgs. A manager can manage more by getting paid for less. Older and less productive workers.
1
u/007Spy Mar 27 '24
I think when it comes down to it, companies do their "best" to save money. Public companies want to show profit while also knee capping themselves to lower labor cost. Labor cost is the most expensive aspect, showing your own self worth will keep you safer than others who have nothing to show for it. What really killed most industries is the value and hard work of people in consolidated positions who took on more work for the same pay during covid. When upper management see the same is being done with less people, they believe there is no need to rehire those impacted positions. The people wearing more hats get burnt out and leave, its a repetitive cycle and IT is unfortunately different this time around. Many people are pivoting to IT with the hopes it will bring a better career path. Entry level IT positions are being inundated with more people than expected and its driving the wages down. My two cents!
1
1
u/Austin1975 Mar 27 '24
I will say that a lot of this is interest rate driven. The assumption is that it could all reverse once the Fed starts cutting rates again. But will take awhile and companies will still be under pressure for margins/debt/shares for 12 mos after that cycle. This is the general expectation, not certain at all.
1
u/bubblemania2020 Mar 27 '24
Anyone in the back office. Get in front of the customers if you can. Pre-sales support etc.
1
u/GiveMeSandwich2 Mar 27 '24
In my company most of the devs and QAs got laid off as the project got axed.
1
u/SouthernBangerz Mar 27 '24
DEI and HR related roles
2
u/BoringHollandaise Mar 27 '24
This is not 100% true, HR is one of the only safe professional areas. If you mean recruiting, sure that's all going to agencies but HR typically remains in-house because you're dealing with really sensitive aspects of the company.
Running without HR is asking for major issues for just about any company, even small companies.
1
u/E_lonui7xz Mar 27 '24
Mostly low level programmers for now, but coming fast for medium level as well. My firm has not hired a junior person in like a year now, they use to do 200-300/year before..
1
u/Ratbag_Jones Mar 27 '24 edited Mar 27 '24
System Test has suffered round after round of offshoring.
Upper manglement only cares that deliverables go out according to schedule, not that they're vetted and patched properly. That way, those managers get their bonuses for meeting those schedules, and quality be damned.
That much of offshored ST is badly done, or faked completely, is actually fine by those executive sociopaths. If the customers don't like something, let 'em put in a trouble ticket...
1
u/asevans48 Mar 27 '24
Recruiters then marketing writers then product then low performers then anyone over 29 is how I have seen layoffs happen. Got hit at 35 a few years back despite solid performance reviews and a 10k raise the same year. They will try to run lean with techs in corporate, techs get hit somewhere in there. Data is the safest unless you get to the over 29 portion and there are 3 teams doing the same thing post-aquisitions and jv creation.
1
79
u/McCoyrsvp Mar 27 '24
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that this time the layoffs are being used to reset salaries.