> But, y'know, regardless of the environment, what does it say about your abilities that your employer didn't consider you essential?

In the case of a startup, there's often not much you can do to be seen as valued if you're not a founding engineer.

I've been a part of 3 layoffs. 15%, 90%, and 75% reductions, all at small or medium-sized startups. At a startup, they're going to keep founding and early engineers first. There's a selection bias, but those engineers aren't probably "dead weight" if they were there since the early days. Plus, there's a cliqueness to startups that will favor them.

Yeah, and all of this is relevant, and the kind of stuff you would wanna talk about with a new potential employer. Maybe you did really amazing work with a killer team, but that team got cut as the founders tried to reduce scope.

But... it's still set against the default backdrop of "they kept some people, but not me", so it's important to be able to tell your story well.

To add, usually companies layoff low performers first.

At my previous job, the company laid off 1000 people, but only 3% of engineering…

    But, y'know, regardless of the environment, what does it say about your
    abilities that your employer didn't consider you essential?

I think it depends on the company. If you're laid off from from a small or medium sized startup, with more or less one product, then I can understand how being laid off can be seen as a reflection of your skills (or lack thereof) as an engineer. But if you were laid off from a larger company, all it means is that some director saw a team (or teams) which were working on more speculative projects, which could be axed as a way of saving money during a recession. It doesn't mean that you're an unskilled engineer. It just means you were unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the ax fell.