[jaxomlotus]

Here's the flip side: I was hiring (at a stealth vc-funded startup).

I reached out to every designer and coder laid off from Twitter and Amazon (one of my investors sent me a spreadsheet that those laid off folks added their contact info to).

I didn't receive a single interested response to my reach outs. Now granted, I'm sure they were bombarded with lots of startup offers and being picky what company/stage they were responding to, or were still in grief mode and not ready to start looking, or maybe (probably!) my reach-out finesse was lacking.

But I'm just pointing out that their are definitely companies like mine who are hiring and it's not all doom and gloom for laid off folks.

I ended up hiring via ads on LinkedIn and job posts on eng message boards.

Being real for a minute: There is definitely a perspective among hiring companies that regular lay offs are sometimes packaged alongside bottom performers, but I think that is something they would just do diligence on during an interview process.

[dixie_land]

My observation is that recent layoffs affect engineers with different seniority very differently.

Senior devs I know who got laid off are just enjoying their time off (with pay! if you consider the severance) after the rocketing market in 2021 (and maybe even H1 22) made them whole and financially secure. And they won't be entertaining a startup unless significant equity or big leveling up (eg Principal or Director).

On the other hand, fresh grads who got laid off are in such a panic mode (esp those on visa) they'd be willing to take anything.

[ryandrake]

Furthermore, some very senior employees are in this boat: They kinda have enough savings to just retire, but were hanging on to their jobs to save maybe 10% more or whatever. Now that they're out of a job they are simply saying "Whelllp, I guess I'm now retired." and not really feeling the need to look anymore. I know someone who refused a forced return to office, and when his company tried to call his bluff, he just said "I guess I'm retired now!"

[giantg2]

"they'd be willing to take anything."

That would apply to me too. I have 10 years in the industry but have been underpaid and have a family. My current plan if I get fired is to work at Walmart or Lowes until I can find another job.

[metadaemon]

I guess if you are used to the security (or lack thereof) and coast-ability of large tech companies, you might be inclined to stick to the big names. However, I've recently discovered how fulfilling startup work is. Ironically, I feel more secure in my current role at a startup than I ever did at big tech. That's thanks a lot to the industry I'm in, but regardless senior devs are missing a lot if they completely discount startup roles.

[rcarmo]

That feels like a very US thing to assume. EU layoffs have different contexts.

[titanomachy]

I’m a low-senior engineer recently laid off. I got lots of emails like that and politely declined. I have a bit over four months of severance pay. For the moment, I’m enjoying other fulfilling activities as well as spending some time upgrading my tech skills through independent study.

I’ve considered some startups, but it seems like it’s often difficult to enforce boundaries on work… I benefit a lot from being able to go offline completely on evenings and weekends. That was always possible in my last job except during the occasional oncall and maybe one or two major launches per year. Also, the pay offered is usually half of what I made in my last job, or less. If the current market situation persists for another six months I’ll probably relax my standards. Or if I get contacted by a startup that’s especially impressive or interesting, or someone I trust tells me it’s a great place to work.

Pay isn’t the most important factor, but I don’t want to get locked in at low comp and have to change again in six months. Also, I have a hard time getting objective information about the work culture at startups. With Google or whatever I can always find contacts who work there and ask them how they feel about their job; with startups every person I talk to is trying to convince me to join and is incentivized to downplay the problems.

[JSavageOne]

> Also, I have a hard time getting objective information about the work culture at startups.

Yes this is a big problem as you have no idea what you're signing up with startups. Maybe the founder expects you to work 12 hours/day and constantly be available, maybe they will fire you a month before your equity vesting, or just randomly fire you one day despite having never given any negative feedback. I've seen all of this at startups, and there is zero accountability. Last time it happened to me I wasn't even offered any severance.

If anyone is considering working for a startup, please do your due diligence. Do not be naive and think that because the founders are very friendly and their startup is backed by YC that they are a good place to work and won't fire you the second they have any doubts about you (personally I'll never work as a full-time employee for a startup going through YC ever again, but that's a story for another day).

Going forward if I'm ever thinking about working for a startup, I will reach out to employees, and ideally ex-employees, to get the inside scoop on what the founders are really like behind the smoke & mirrors.

[gen220]

If you're interviewing with an early stage (read: pre-series B) startup, the founders believe you're a good fit, and they have seeded a good culture, they will be happy to let you interview every person they've hired so far.

I like to ask these people "Why did you choose this company versus any of the other ones?" and "What were your expectations about [thing I'm uncertain about], and how did your experience differ from that?"

Startups actually have more signal to offer than most big tech companies. However, the onus is on you to scuttlebut, and it's true that the risks of not doing it well are more severe.

Re: compensation, if you are able to demonstrate competence and efficacy, early stage startups will offer you a cash basis comparable to that of big tech. Of course, if your expenses have inflated to the expectation of selling big tech RSUs every year, you should expect a pretty significant "real" cut in annual income unless you walk in to another public company.

[pcthrowaway]

Curious if there could be repercussions are of joining a startup, enforcing your boundaries, and if they don't respect them, quitting early (just leaving them off your resume).

You get a bit more cash, and I can't see it impacting your career negatively (though you do end up trading some of the time you could be resting and collecting severance to see if the company might be a good long-term fit)

[shmatt]

Wild guess says you're not paying Amazon/Twitter compensation. And thats fine, they shouldn't be your target

It would not be smart of them to accept a lower paying job immediately. A lot of them have life expenses directly tied to the amount of money they're making. Maybe those who haven't found anything for 3 months can join your company, move to a new place, change their childrens' daycare, and do a lot of life changing decisions based on their new income

[bradlys]

It’s wild that this isn’t the top response.

I get a ton of emails from random startups in stealth mode, early funding, whatever.

You know where they all go? Spam folder. As far as I’m concerned, they pay the equivalent of dog shit and are mostly full of extremely entitled founders. They rarely offer equity that’s even remotely worth the risk. I’m way better off joining a company at Series B/C. I can often get a very similar amount of stock that even seed or series A folks have with having avoided a huge amount of risk. Tbh - I find joining pre-IPO probably has close to the best reward+risk for non-public entities.

There’s just no benefit to joining early startups as a non-founder. Maybe when founders start offering serious percentages of stock that isn’t going to be diluted into nothing - I’ll be more inclined. Until then - no way!

[time_to_smile]

If I was laid off I would, unfortunately, avoid startups at all costs.

It's not just the comp difference (though I do expect most people with severance are hoping to get something close to their old TC), but startups are notoriously fragile and at the same time wildly over optimistic about their futures in down markets.

I've talked to a few startups about interesting roles over the past few months and no matter how obviously in trouble they are if the market continues the way it is, they all deeply believe that they have an infinitely bright future.

A shocking number of post-seed but still awaiting series A startups have started reaching out to me and none of them have sane business models. On top of that it looks like VC funding is way down.

Any senior engineers who just got the shock of being let go from what they thought was a very stable job with great comp simply aren't going to be excited to jump onto a high risk startup just to relive the whole experience again only this time with less severance.

[elamje]

I saw this as well for most of 2022. Our company was hiring, and my founder friends would pass me the layoff lists, but I'd never hear back from the people I pinged.

If anyone is struggling and is on the mid/senior/director side of their career (3+ yrs), I'm helping place people at my friends Seed and Series A companies.

VC money is still there but pumping into Seed/Series A companies with more upside now rather than insane B, C, D companies that have no profitability in sight. email me at j{at}markovmanagement.com if interested :)

[Yoric]

> Being real for a minute: There is definitely a perspective among hiring companies that regular lay offs are sometimes packaged alongside bottom performers, but I think that is something they would just do diligence on during an interview process.

Not sure what you mean here. I know of companies that lay off entire teams, irrespective of performance. I suspect that it's the same everywhere.

[woofcat]

I know many companies that do select whole teams, but it's also cleaning house time and the lowest performer from a previously non-impacted team will be included as laying off is easier than firing depending on where in the world you are.

[the_jeremy]

If you're laying off people, you're going to also get rid of the low performers. Maybe you don't have enough low performers (or just don't know who they are) to make up the quota and you have to remove whole teams or use arbitrary metrics, but there will be an overrepresentation of below-average workers compared to the survivors. Source: wife is a manager at a company that had single-digit percent layoffs.

[hackernewds]

Does that say more about the hiring market, or about your startup though?

[therealdrag0]

The point is if the market is bad enough than people can’t have standards. And people still have standards so the market isn’t that bad.

[sgwizdak]

One note from personal experience -- it'll likely take about 12 weeks or so for a laid off dev to come back up to speed with interview prep to feel confident to start the interview grind again. One thing that can likely help is being upfront with the evaluation process.

[FollowingTheDao]

If they can afford to wait three months (!) to start looking for work because of "feelings" they they deserved to be laid off.

[tayo42]

How much are you paying? I might have been in that group, most of these companies I find don't have an interesting problem or aren't paying enough. Maybe don't allow for remote work.

[Yoric]

Indeed, not allowing for remote work is a considerable blocker for many candidates.

[pyrrhotech]

Or they are looking at those juicy severance checks and deciding to take a 6 month vacation before applying anywhere again, using state of the economy as an excuse.

[zem]

why does taking a six month vacation that you can afford need an "excuse"?

[gowld]

> stealth vc-funded startup

If I just got laid off, I might not want to take another huge gamble like this.

[switchbak]

Especially in this economic / VC climate. We're not where we were a year ago, and credit/investment is a much different proposition.

[exitb]

I just want to point out that it’s quite horrible that this sort of lists are floating around.

EDIT: As other commenters are pointing out, this appears to be a list of voluntarily added people. In such case the lack of replies is indeed puzzling.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> that those laid off folks added their contact info to

Hopefully that's actually true but, regardless, it seems to be what's believed. If it is true, it's reasonable to assume they knew what the list would be.

[didip]

There is a list that can be bought for literally anything you can imagine.

[patricklorio]

why?

> that those laid off folks added their contact info to

They seem to have added their info to the list for it to be floated around.

[itstyebaby]

Is there anywhere I can get more information or how may I contact you for a job position if you are still hiring.

[faangiq]

You’re not paying enough. Or maybe you are but people are of getting lowballed by shit tier startups that have raised at zero upside valuations.

[hankchinaski]

Supposedly people have lots of savings and don’t need to rush to settle for a downgrade. Especially when coming from top tier places like faang

[jrib]

what eng message boards did you post to?

[replwoacause]

LOL. Yeah, I'm sure these people are enjoying their severance and unemployment benefits.

[kirso]

How was your experience with job boards compared to LinkedIn? Was it effective?

[biinui]

May I know what these eng message boards are? :D

[codegeek]

Be careful because a lot of smart people from FAANG may not be a good fit for startups.they are more corporate types nowadays and are probably used to easy money with not much pressure. Startups on the other hand are nothing like that