I worked as a hardware engineer at a food/tech company in Southern California. There were around 100 people at their main office. Last week, they decided to lay off the whole hardware department- engineers, engineering manager and the department head. HR walked in on a Thursday and told us that the following day would be our last day. We received 2-4 weeks of severance pay (depending on our time with the company). I don’t want to get into details but there were “issues” between the hardware and software teams. And I heard that it was the head of the software department who convinced higher ups that we don’t need a hardware department. Not asking if this is morally correct. But is this something usual? How do you ensure job security? I had seen some people in this company not sharing passwords or not granting certain privileges to other engineers. Is that a way of maintaining job security?
Sounds like a toxic culture and a company you don't want to be a part of but not completely unheard of as long as they give a reasonable severance.
For some reason I wasn’t sad, but relieved that I did not have to come to work the next day.
Name and shame.
The moment I get my severance in the bank
You can’t do it after that too .. that’s what you agree to on the severance agreement
That is rough. I feel for you and your team.
There is no job security. There is no job security. There is no job security. Repeat this every morning till it sinks in. Such is the nature of at-will employment
Here’s a nugget of #truth on Blind. All I owe my employer is an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Rinse and repeat. If I get a better offer, I’m gone.
What city?
It's going to be more and more common. Winter is coming.
Yup, it's been a while since the tech scene has experienced this, but the party won't last forever and this will be common again.
Lol this is probably Soylent
Snack Nation?
Nah this is Def muchery
Join a non shitty company like MS? Its pretty obvious how to avoid layoff here, have relevant skills and add value... we rarely lay off valuable devs. Even when we cut big products like wphone, we reassigned almost everyone.
never say never. in the end, everyone is expendable.
Whatever. I was told I was being laid off at MS and then a few days later given a few choices of teams I could join without interview. So I think MS at least tries
Not being cooperative is a great way to convince upper management that you're more trouble than you're worth.
Dude the guy was just laid off, you hearthless robot