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A layoff fundamentally changed how I perceive work

(mertbulan.com)
1041 points mertbio | 7 comments | 27 Jan 25 08:22 UTC | HN request time: 1.897s | source | bottom
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seanc ◴[27 Jan 25 14:33 UTC] No.42841499[source]▶
I've been in high tech for 30 years, and I've been laid off many times, most often from failed start ups. I _strongly_ disagree with a fully cynical response of working only to contract, leveraging job offers for raises, etc.

There are a few reasons for this, but the most concrete is that your behavior in this job has an impact on getting the next one. The author is correct that exemplary performance will not save you from being laid off, but when layoffs come your next job often comes from contacts that you built up from the current job, or jobs before. If people know you are a standout contributor then you will be hired quickly into desirable roles. If people think you are a hired gun who only does the bare minimum that next role will be harder to find.

On top of that, carrying around bitterness and cynicism is just bad for you. Pride in good work and pleasure in having an impact on customers and coworkers is good for you. Sometimes that means making dumb business decisions like sacrificing an evening to a company that doesn't care, but IMO that sort of thing is worth it now and then.

To be sure, don't give your heart away to a company (I did that exactly once, never again) because a company will never love you back. But your co-workers will.

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maiar ◴[27 Jan 25 15:34 UTC] No.42842180[source]▶
It’s worthwhile to “go above and beyond” for individuals who will help you, who may exist in a company… but never for the company itself. A company is no less and no more than a pile of someone else’s money that will do literally anything, including destroy your life, to become a bigger pile.

You should do a good job for individuals who will repay you later on. Companies themselves these days can sod off—they stand for nothing.

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CydeWeys ◴[27 Jan 25 16:57 UTC] No.42843127[source]▶
"Going above and beyond" at a big company, if done in a smart strategic way, is the best way to get promoted, and getting promoted results in significantly higher pay. I've gotten promoted twice at my current employer over the years, which has roughly doubled my total compensation, and none of that would have happened had I just did my previous level's responsibilities and nothing beyond.
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bryanlarsen ◴[27 Jan 25 17:10 UTC] No.42843275[source]▶
That's the exception rather than the rule. Most people have to switch employers to get a significant pay raise.
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edmundsauto ◴[27 Jan 25 17:16 UTC] No.42843342[source]▶
As with all things, it depends where you are. It’s not the case for big tech employers, who tend to have very clear “levels” and (from what I can tell on levels.fyi) it’s often a 25%+ jump in total comp.

And these are the biggest employers of talent. It may not be most people in a startup forum, but it’s a lot of people.

For all others, I think it’s because tech isn’t seen as such an important revenue driver. Lots of places we are still seen as a cost center.

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1. delroth ◴[27 Jan 25 17:25 UTC] No.42843435[source]▶
> It’s not the case for big tech employers, who tend to have very clear “levels” and (from what I can tell on levels.fyi) it’s often a 25%+ jump in total comp.

You're misinterpreting the data, because you can't see for data points on levels.fyi whether they obtained their reported salary by being promoted within the company or by doing the very common "side-promotion" of getting hired at a higher level at a competitor.

I was young and naive and unwilling to play the company hopping game, I got promoted from L3 to L6 at Google, after a year and a half at L6 I was paid in base salary less than some of my colleagues who got recently hired at L5 and negotiated well, plus they got significantly higher stock grants as part of their signing bonus (like, around 2x what I was getting through standard yearly grant refreshes).

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2. compiler-guy ◴[27 Jan 25 18:53 UTC] No.42844370[source]▶
I've always called that a "diagonal promotion" because it's over-and-up.

It's also the only way I have ever gotten a significant increase in compensation, responsibility, and title.

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3. vkou ◴[27 Jan 25 18:56 UTC] No.42844393[source]▶
Those L5s negotiated a good hiring wage, but would see stagnant growth until they hit the median of wages for level + performance rating in their location.

Also since COVID, they've been very aggressively squishing the pay bands.

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4. somanyphotons ◴[27 Jan 25 19:20 UTC] No.42844609[source]▶
Managers who are handing our perf-review changes in comp are often very constrained when handling those who negotiated well. They'll typically get inflation level raises for a long time until they're lower in their band
5. ctrlw ◴[27 Jan 25 19:51 UTC] No.42844916[source]▶
The signing bonus stock grants may also have compensated them for giving up the stock grants of their previous employer, so they probably still received less than you had accumulated.
6. Rebelgecko ◴[27 Jan 25 20:44 UTC] No.42845431[source]▶
They also have the advantage of getting L5 pay immediately, while for someone who got promoted internally it can take 4-5 years for all the equity to catch up
7. scarface_74 ◴[28 Jan 25 13:13 UTC] No.42851921[source]▶
Over the past 7 years, it wasn’t comp I was optimizing for over a certain amount it was increasing in scope and impact and autonomy when it came to managing projects and getting closer to the “business”.

I realized that it would be my competitive advantage as everything else got commoditized and outsourced.

I went from the second highest tech IC at a 100 person startup setting the direction of the overall architecture, to a mid level cloud consultant at BigTech (full time, direct hire), to a “staff” level at a smaller company (same responsibilities as a senior at BigTech).

Funny enough, the company that acquired the startup pre-BigTech offered me a staff position responsible for strategy over all of their acquisitions 3 years later.

My next play if I cared about comp, would be to go back to BigTech as a senior or a smaller company as a director/CTO.