this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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Unity, Google, Discord. All within a day or two of each other.
For every number of employees laid off, a VP level employee must be fired. Those employees didn't hire themselves. Someone came up with the idea.
If companies don't do this they're not attacking the root of the problem.
They coordinate to create a glut and push all their wages down. Computer touching wagies and so socially stunted they'll never form effective union. If they did, they would jusy defect out of greed.
The industry is so niche, the technology is so heavily customized, and the people so idiosyncratic that I think forming a union shouldn't be that hard. The real dampener is that the pay for these jobs is always far above the median. Five years of experience and you're reaching towards six figures. Ten years and you're well over the line. And in Silicon Valley, the sky is the limit. A master's or phd in your field means you're looking at $200k, $300k, $400k...
If there's a big drop in wages (and considering the real estate prices in the neighborhoods where these businesses exist) something's got to give. Maybe you get unions. Maybe you just get a bunch of businesses collapsing on themselves Twitter-style and forcing people back into the "indie company-in-my-garage" model. Maybe everyone becomes contractors.
But this isn't sustainable in any serious sense.
I work in aerospace, we got unions back in the 70s and never let them go. For what the job actually is, it pays pretty good.
Aerospace pay is good, but it used to be a whole lot better. The salaries definitely haven't kept up with executive pay, even if they're multiples of the regional average. I've got a friend who went into aerospace and bemoans how he's living solidly middle class in a field that used to put you squarely into the top 5% income bracket. Funny to see someone complain about earning a quarter million a year, but when buying a starter home costs twice that...
Oh I make 3 times less than that. But I slack off in a proportionnal manner !
Plenty of slackers in the aerospace industry. Don't let that hold you back.
I will be the slackiest of them all !
Programmers are already ridiculously overpaid lol
Also twitch. Yuck...
Probably some great devs on the market for anyone hiring though.
Yeah, no
All devs must go through at least a year of unemployment according to these mofos
You're expecting Morlocks to feast on each other, instead of feasting on the Eloi.
Year end business review
Bold of you to think that the VP level employees don't get big raises in exchange for laying empoyees off.
I think it's an unfair and naive assumption to think VPs all keep their jobs. I've seen some pretty nasty game of thrones plays by executive leadership during layoffs due to consolidation of teams and remits. Someone might get a bonus that doesn't deserve it, but someone is going to get let go at a high level (albeit with a generous severance not offered to the rest of the employees).
Also, when new senior leadership comes in, it's not uncommon for them to let heads roll at the leadership level to fill out the team with folks they know or trust. I'm not shedding a tear about where those folks will go on to find similar employment, but I think there's a misconception about how safe those positions actually are.
I guess I'm jaded because I've seen far too many times where it's the worker bees, the people who actually put the work in and get things done, getting the sharp end of the stick. I would be surprised if the 17% of employees Discord laid off actually included VPs.
I hear you. You are going to see a lot more worker bees than VPs laid off in part because there's a lot more worker bees than VPs.
per https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/discord-layoffs-citron-overhiring-gaming-18603308.php
Depending on how the structure is laid out and what product areas were cut, I'm guessing up to the director level would be impacted.