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Sounds great until they’re PIPd. And I fully agree with you. The industry is hellbent on working people into the ground because they’re drunk on their newfound layoff powers. They absolutely love the turn around in their favor and I’ve personally witnessed management using horrible psychological tactics to overwork people in this environment. This industry really disgusts me, but hey, at least they’re going masks off finally so we can see them for what they really are.

I don’t care what people say online, I’ve seen excellent engineers treated like trash recently, some of which are also thinking of leaving the industry. That’s everyone’s loss. I’m so tired of all this short term thinking.

by ryandrake224 days ago|

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It’s a lose-lose situation: if you are getting your work done and not sweating, then you are seen as having more capacity, and you’re given more work until you are visibly at your breaking point. If you -are- dropping things because you’re overbooked, then you’re seen as performing poorly and get PIPd.

by scarface_74223 days ago|

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That’s why you should always have - an emergency fund, an up to date network, resume and career document.

If you live in any major city in the US, as a software engineer you are probably making twice the local median wage and should be able to build up savings.

by spacemadness223 days ago|

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Are you suggesting I don’t? I have those things but the industry is still in a bad place and is doing a lot of damage to good people.

by scarface_74223 days ago|

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If you have those things, you are empowered to say “no”.

I just came away from a 3.5 year stint at AWS - the most toxic of the big tech companies - the year before last. While many were losing sleep, overworking during their “focus”, I didn’t cancel a single vacation, refused to be overworked, and when they gave me the choice of accepting the severance and “leave immediately”, I accepted the severance without even listening to what I could do to possibly stay, reached out to my network, started interviewing and went to NYC for a week two weeks later to go to the US Tennis Open.

I had an offer ten days after my last day.

The next year in 2024, I got an invite at 7 PM for a “1-1” with my manager the next morning at 9 AM. I told my wife I’m about to be let go probably. She asked me was I okay. I said yes, set my alarm and rolled over and went to sleep.

I said thank you to my manager, asked them about the process to turn in my laptop (worked remotely) and asked about my severance and started interviewing that day - I had an offer within two weeks - staff architect working full time at a cloud consulting company.

I’ve been working since 1996 and I’m in my tenth job. I don’t panic, I don’t work over 40 hours a week unless I’m spending time learning something new to me, I don’t sacrifice my health or well being. I’ve been through the dot com bust, the 2008 recession and the shit show of the last three years.

It’s not “doing damage” to people who stay prepared. I don’t do the leet code grind. I don’t do take home test. I’ve never struck it rich in either BigTech or startups and I was a mostly your standard enterprise dev until 2020.

I mentioned my background here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44377380

by spacemadness222 days ago|

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Good for you. But I’ve seen the psychological damage this current environment is doing to folks and it just excuses it away in some illusory realist stance. So maybe don’t speak for everyone like they’re failing for being human.

by scarface_74222 days ago|

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I’m saying it only does “psychological damage” when you start treating your job as more than a transaction where you exchange money for labor. If you have savings you have the agency to say “no” to toxic environments and stop stressing over an organization that if you got hit by a bus would forget you ever existed before your body grows cold.