A layoff fundamentally changed how I perceive work

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.

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.

"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.

That's the exception rather than the rule. Most people have to switch employers to get a significant pay raise.

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.

> 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).