My own pet theory about this round of layoffs is as follows. The tech companies spent 2021 massively over-estimating the value of boot camp folks and new grads. They spent 2022 learning a tough lesson. I saw this first hand. So much lost time mentoring low-quality hires.
Now they will spend 2023 massively underestimating the value of their senior folks (10+ yoe engineers, scientists with deep domain expertise, experienced people managers, etc.). The problem in 2024-2026 will be that experienced engineers/managers and PhDs who know how to operate well in industry do not grow on trees. Fixing that mistake is going to be a LOT harder than firing a bunch of junior engineers. It may take a decade or longer, and I think the burnt bridges could even be existential for at least one of the FAANGs. (I also bet you'll guess a different one than me, so maybe more than one ;-))
Also: the alternative is not just startups. Smaller companies, sole props, and of course also skiing.
I am getting very close to that "~10 years to infinity" number in my accounts. I might do a startup, probably self-funded, likely keep it small. I know who my first 5 customers will be, the work will be fun, I know I can execute well. Doing this at a FAANG would require pulling in 20+ full timers for a year before shipping our first line of code. Totally not worth the ridiculous pageantry when I can do it on my own or with 1-2 helping hands.
I'll be making a tiny fraction of what I make today, but the work will be enjoyable and I'll be building what I've wanted to build for the last ten years. Also, I will own the damn thing, which is much more tax-efficient than taking a few years of massive paychecks, and that's something I am more sensitive to now that my money is making so much money. If I were laid off today, I'd need at least double my current comp to return to a FAANG. And even then probably wouldn't.
>I also bet you'll guess a different one than me, so maybe more than one ;-)
Only thing I'll say is it won't be Apple, since they did none of the above/didn't get into the "hiring Spree" in the same way all the rest of the tech giants did, which includes what I'd call FAANG-adjacent spots like Uber, etc.
> Doing this at a FAANG would require pulling in 20+ full timers for a year before shipping our first line of code.
Why are these large companies so slow? Are the 10+ yoe engineers, scientists with deep domain expertise, experienced people managers, etc. helping or hurting this?
A combination of risk aversion, regulatory burden, and process. The corporate machine can't afford to trust the judgement of individual contributors or even their managers or even their directors or sometimes even their VPs.
Credit where it's due: some of that is because of real risks that large corps do need to worry about but scrappy startups don't need to worry about.
A lot of it though -- especially the burdens that come from standardized processes and distributed responsibility -- boils down to a combination of (1) the cost of treating employees like cogs and (2) some amount of empire building.
> Are the 10+ yoe engineers, scientists with deep domain expertise, experienced people managers, etc. helping or hurting this?
It can go either way, but the question is kind of ill-formed. The decisions that slow stuff down happen at the VP+ level. If you're being slowed down by an IC, it's usually not the IC's fault (you'd rather not even have to interact with them in the first place, but someone VP+ demanded that you must).
That said, generally the valuable people with tons of experience are the ones building/fixing stuff. The "process implementation cogs" are typically more commodity-like labor.
Because for FAANG to invest resources in a program, they need to make sure that it will return hundreds of millions of dollars. Don’t forget that every year they need to show to the shareholders that they grow with double digits, and for FAANG this means billions of dollars in extra revenue.
So a lot of time is spent evaluating a program in stead of just doing the program.
This as well. Things that make for fantastic lifestyle businesses -- a few people doing mid-seven revenue with minimal compute expenses -- just isn't worth it for a FAANG spending an order of magnitude more than that per hour just on one guy's compensation package.
My own pet theory about this round of layoffs is as follows. The tech companies spent 2021 massively over-estimating the value of boot camp folks and new grads. They spent 2022 learning a tough lesson. I saw this first hand. So much lost time mentoring low-quality hires.
Now they will spend 2023 massively underestimating the value of their senior folks (10+ yoe engineers, scientists with deep domain expertise, experienced people managers, etc.). The problem in 2024-2026 will be that experienced engineers/managers and PhDs who know how to operate well in industry do not grow on trees. Fixing that mistake is going to be a LOT harder than firing a bunch of junior engineers. It may take a decade or longer, and I think the burnt bridges could even be existential for at least one of the FAANGs. (I also bet you'll guess a different one than me, so maybe more than one ;-))
Also: the alternative is not just startups. Smaller companies, sole props, and of course also skiing.
I am getting very close to that "~10 years to infinity" number in my accounts. I might do a startup, probably self-funded, likely keep it small. I know who my first 5 customers will be, the work will be fun, I know I can execute well. Doing this at a FAANG would require pulling in 20+ full timers for a year before shipping our first line of code. Totally not worth the ridiculous pageantry when I can do it on my own or with 1-2 helping hands.
I'll be making a tiny fraction of what I make today, but the work will be enjoyable and I'll be building what I've wanted to build for the last ten years. Also, I will own the damn thing, which is much more tax-efficient than taking a few years of massive paychecks, and that's something I am more sensitive to now that my money is making so much money. If I were laid off today, I'd need at least double my current comp to return to a FAANG. And even then probably wouldn't.