> Layoffs were uncommon when I started working, and being a developer felt like an incredibly safe job. In most professions, the unspoken rule was simple: if you performed well and the company was financially stable, your job was secure.
You hear this a lot but it's the result of developers from sectors that did well during this time period whistling past the graveyard as rolling layoffs hit more mature sectors and firms, such as networking (Cisco) and storage. It's surprising to me that people who are paid to try to imagine how systems perform in different scenarios, and are presumably good at what they are paid to do, fail to apply the same thought processes to the systems that provide them their salaries.