[seanc]

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.

[maiar]

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.

[CydeWeys]

"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.

[Suppafly]

>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.

That feels like the correct way to think about it. Everyone else seems to think it's one extreme or the other but really thinking about it on an individual level vs a company level seems more accurate to my own experience.

[amykhar]

I don't think this is true of all companies. My current company doesn't base bonuses on individual contributions, and even went so far as to reduce the number of "story points" that top contributors did in sprints so that the rest of the team wouldn't look bad.

[roguecoder]

I don't think it's just about who will repay you. Our responsibility to each other is not nearly that transactional.

For example, the individual who is most likely to live with the consequences of your decision is... future you.

Future-me isn't going to pay me back, but I am always grateful to past-me when I set future-me up for success.

[harrison_clarke]

that's true with publicly traded C-corporations

for private companies, it literally is the people you work with (and whatever legal enchantments they've decided on). some of those people will still fuck you over, but it's not a legally-conjured sentient pile of money the way a C-corp is

B-corps are an interesting attempt to avoid being a sentient pile of money. in theory, it's an egregore that is capable of valuing things other than money. (they haven't really been tested in court. and they might fuck you over in pursuit of some other value, even if they do work. or fucking you over for money might not conflict with its other values)

[jmull]

> 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...

Right.

The company doesn't care.

But I do.

I don't work hard on my craft, push myself to be better/smarter/have more impact, or go above and beyond for my employer.

I do it for myself.

[harimau777]

My experience has been that caring about your craft is a great way to get in trouble. As a previous co-worker once told me "it turns out that the less I care about this job the more happy my managers are with my performance."

[v3xro]

Indeed. Although I find it increasingly hard to find work that aligns with my expectations about technical excellency (too many companies chasing big returns on half-finished products for example) or even methods of creating software. This is hard to manage from a personal perspective but I guess life goes on... I wholeheartedly agree with the author - life's too short to be wasted on work that may get you some good words in one quarter and not matter the next.

[turbojet1321]

The question to ask yourself then is: why is it that the behaviour that brings you pleasure/meaning/satisfaction happens to align exactly with what the company wants?

I spent most of my career with a similar attitude to yours, and TBH it's still my default. The question I find myself asking more and more is: can I maintain/increase my level of satisfaction while giving less of myself to a company that simply doesn't care?

[creer]

Perhaps. Pay attention to the time you spend "doing the task well" so that YOU are satisfied. You are now smarter (say) but is your hierarchy going to promote you for this? Or park you and make you do this indefinitely, or blame you for the rest that didn't get done? Is your network as a whole now more inclined to hire you out in their next venture?

[scotty79]

That smells like something a person with very little choice would say. At least I was saying similar things to myself in times I had very little choice. It's a very good way of regaining illusion of agency.

[akudha]

The quicker we make peace with the fact that hard work alone will not get us ahead (in most cases) the better it is for our mental health. We can put as much effort into our jobs as long as we accept that the only guaranteed result is our own joy, pride in our work and nothing else (not even a thank you from suits) is guaranteed.

If we are not able to accept that, then just do the bare minimum like most people. OR find a better job, but there is still no guarantee the new job would actually be better than the old job. But hey, at least we might get more compensation in our new job, so there's that

[trentnix]

Well said.

[_heimdall]

I draw the line at doing work that I can be proud of. That doesn't mean going out of my way and overworking myself, but it does mean being a good person to work with and writing quality code.

I tend to stick to the scope of work asked of me (though not always) for the reasons in the article, but I don't just phone it in. I put effort into writing good code, tests, and PR reviews.

In my experience, when it comes to getting the next job the only thing that really matters either way are references. If you were a too co-worker and did at least put in the effort to do good work within bounds of the scope asked for, you shouldn't have a problem.

[apercu]

> I draw the line at doing work that I can be proud of.

That's important. I spend more awake time working/thinking about work than really else. I don't know that it's healthy, but at least I want to be proud of the outputs if I am going to spend this much time on something. I just can't really show up and mail it in, I'm just not wired that way, and suspect that a lot if us aren't.

[djtriptych]

Yeah this is super important IMO. Set your own standards for what that means. Makes it much easier to handle the slings and arrows of normal 9-5 headaches, and to understand when you're being pressed to do things you wouldn't be proud of.

[nelblu]

I agree with your comment. I have never been laid off, and I hope I don't ever do or at least I see the signs early on to be prepared.

The way I see "work" is that you are going to spend 8hrs of your day doing it, so you better feel positive about it and enjoy it. I couldn't care less about the corporate lords and I very well know I am just a line on an excel, but when I work I want to be sure I feel satisfied, I enjoy it and build trust with my team and meaningful relationships where possible.

I am not a religious person, but there is a famous saying in Hinduism - कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन | मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि|| It roughly translates to "You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction."

I love the last line of it where it says "don't be attached to inaction" which means just because the fruit of labour isn't in your control, doesn't mean you can just start behaving like a someone who doesn't care.

[qnleigh]

I read the Bhagavad Gita a few years ago, and this quote is much of the core lesson that I took away from it. It's one of the most impactful texts I have ever read.

I would take 'duty' in this context to refer not to your obligation to your employer, but rather to people your work is ultimately intended to serve, your coworkers, and perhaps also to yourself. If you've prioritized your efforts well, then you won't regret failure or gettin laid off, because you did the best you could given the information available to you at the time.

[Aurornis]

> I _strongly_ disagree with a fully cynical response of working only to contract, leveraging job offers for raises, etc.

Early in my career I watched a coworker get denied a promotion to management and make a hard turn toward cynicism. To be honest, he was not ready for a management promotion and the company made the right call. However, he was so insulted that he immediately started looking for new jobs and stopped doing more than a couple hours of work per week.

I thought his cynicism was going to backfire, but over the next several years he job hopped almost every year, getting bigger titles at every move. For a long time I was jealous that his cynicism and mercenary-style approach to employment was paying off so well.

Years later I went to a fun networking lunch. His name came up and many of us, from different local companies, said we had worked with him. The conversation quickly turned to how he had kind of screwed everyone over by doing Resume Driven Development, starting ambitious projects, and then leaving before he had to deal with consequences of, well, anything.

He hit a wall mid-career where he was having a very hard time getting hired because his resume was full of job hopping. He was requesting reference letters from past bosses multiple times a month because he was always trying to job hop. One admitted that he eventually just stopped responding, because he'd write a lot of reference letters every job-hop cycle only to have him bail on the company with a lot of technical debt later.

He eventually moved away, I suspect partially because the local market had become saturated with people who knew his game. He interviewed extremely well (because he did it so much) but he'd fail out as soon as someone recognized his name or talked to an old coworker.

The last I talked to him, he felt like a really cynical person all around. Like his personality was based on being a mercenary who extracted "TC" from companies by playing all the games. He was out of work, but asked me if I had any leads (no thanks!).

I'm no longer jealous of his mercenary, job-hopping adventure.

[cudgy]

I’ve known many people like this throughout my career, and I have seen the absolute opposite that you observed. These people are perfect candidates for management positions and their focus on office politics pays off handsomely. It’s not for me; might not be for you; but in reality these machiavellian tactics work if you wanna move up and get promoted in most large corporations.

[billy99k]

"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."

I've been in tech for 15 years and twice was enough for me. I now take on multiple contracts at the same time and make way more than I ever did as a regular employee.

I also won't work for startups as a full-time salaried employee anymore. They will always try to squeeze the hours out of you because they are usually trying to make a fast approaching deadline to get that next round of funding.

I had a well paying 6 month contract last summer and they wanted to hire me as a full-time, salaried employee. The problem was that I worked closely with their salaried employees and they were always overworked (many working on multiple teams) and working long hours on extremely tight deadlines.

The space was also over-saturated and when I researched the company, they were not turning a profit after a couple of years and continuing to take on rounds of funding.

When I refused the offer and wanted to continue as a contractor, they cut off all contact with me and I haven't heard from them since. It really showed me that they just wanted to overwork me and not pay.

[low_common]

What sites do you use to find good contract work?

[the_af]

I'm very cynical but I also kinda agree with this.

Don't be loyal to the company, because the company isn't loyal to you. Don't overwork, don't neglect family, friends and hobbies. It's simply not worth it, you'll burn yourself out, and it won't save you when the ax falls.

But do a good job, because it's good for you, your self-esteem, your mood and your skills. If you "quiet quit", you're doing yourself a disservice. (Barring extreme cases, of course).

[deeg]

I'd rephrase this to: don't be loyal to work but be loyal to your coworkers. Be the person everyone wants to work with.

[Spivak]

I would nit and say "quiet-quit" to give you the time to work on finding your next job. Do it as a means, not an end.

[usixk]

Love this distillation!

[tajd]

Yeah - hard agree with this. There's a lot to be said about giving your best effort in proportion to all the other things you're doing in your life.

[sam0x17]

> 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

This is completely false. I literally haven't seen someone do a reference check once in the last 10 years. Early 2010s it was more common but this practice is dead. Now every company is a new slate. In fact, I've seen people repeatedly rewarded for jumping ship and build there career on that. Companies have stopped investing in devs, so why should devs not reciprocate?

And there are so many startups. More than you can count. There are more new ones every day than you could ever have time to apply to. They don't all have time to talk to each other.

Not saying it's not good to have pride in your work, but within reason, and within a framework of fairness and quid pro quo. Don't let people exploit you any more than you exploit them. Employment is 100% transactional and the moment you forget that is the moment you get taken advantage of.

[rmah]

It's not about references. It's about building a network of colleagues who respect you and your work. Many years ago, when I started doing consulting/contracting work, literally all my of my jobs came through people I had previously worked for or with across a variety of companies. And if you play your cards right, as the years roll on, you won't even have to apply for jobs other than as a formality. Instead, people who's respect you've gained will try to bring you into where they work.

[AlunAlun]

> This is completely false.

It's not completely false at all - but it does depend greatly depends on which country you're based in.

Where I am, in Spain, your network, and your reputation within it, are _everything_. Good jobs will sometimes not even be advertised, as the first thing a hirer will do is ask around their network for recommendations, and those recommendations count for _a lot_. On the other side, when you are looking for work, the first thing you do is ask your network for an intro - and again, that intro counts for a lot.

That's not to say that the traditional interview process will be skipped, but candidates coming from recommendations will have a massive head-start over others.

[collingreen]

Their point wasn't reference checks it was the power of a network of people who want to work with you again because they know your work is more than just transactional.

[Aurornis]

Reference checks happen a lot. You just don't see them.

Most companies stopped asking for references because everyone just games the system. Managers are afraid of giving anything but glowing references because they want to keep their own network opportunities strong. Giving positive references is basically a networking game these days.

So that's not how people reference check. Now, they go on LinkedIn and look for mutual connections they trust. They check for people they know whose work history overlapped with the candidate's time at a different company. They go ask that person without the candidate ever knowing.

I get probably 10X as many backchannel reference requests as I do formal reference check requests.

[the_af]

> This is completely false. I literally haven't seen someone do a reference check once in the last 10 years.

I understand this might not be your experience, but it's far from being "completely false".

I have had background checks/reference checks done on me (thankfully my would-be boss told me they were a formality and nobody cared about the results. I say "thankfully" not because I had anything to hide, but because the contractors doing the background checks asked for the dumbest things). I was also contacted by US-based consulting firms and asked to provide references on a former boss of mine, who was now applying for an engineering position... and to my surprise, the reference check involved getting on a call with me!

More recently, a relative was applying to a fintech and was asked for references for all her pasts jobs since she started working in the relevant field.

I know lots of companies don't care, but many others do.

Besides, like other commenters said, it's not only about formal references checking. It's also about the networks you build with coworkers whom you can potentially meet again in other jobs, and whom you want to speak favorably of you. I know I've informally vetoed coworkers whom I knew were terrible at their jobs and I heard recruiting was thinking of making an offer to. Likewise, I've enthusiastically recommended past coworkers who I would enjoy working with again.

[sokoloff]

The effect’s source is much more direct than that.

It’s not a reference check to see “is sam0x17 a good dev?” at the end of a hiring pipeline, but rather “I’ve got an open role and remember that sam0x17 is one of the best devs I’ve ever worked with; let’s get them into the company!”

[wing-_-nuts]

I'm not sure which market you're in, but companies here absolutely do reference checks. They will even reach out people you didn't list if they're a shared connection.

My standing recommendation to everyone is to do good work and get better at advocating for yourself to make sure you're either getting the experience or the comp you need to achieve your goals. If you're not getting that, switch jobs. It's much much better to switch jobs every few years if that's what you need to stay motivated than to stay, do the minimum and collect a paycheck.

[CydeWeys]

They're talking about referrals, not reference checks. Getting good referrals is hugely important, especially at smaller companies that don't the capacity to do a rigorous hiring process.

[educasean]

I spent the last few months interviewing at various bay area startups for senior SE roles. About half of them wanted references. This was my experience so YMMV

[turbojet1321]

It's not at all false IME, though I'm not in SV or the US. Most job want up-front references from at least 2 people, one of whom must be your current supervisor/boss (or someone else higher in the chain of command). You can occasionally get away without it, but it's difficult.

[knowitnone]

reference checks are pointless if employee gives you a list of favorable references

[hobs]

It happens all the time as you get higher and higher on the org tree, I had jobs not only call my references by ask if they could also speak to my former bosses.

When the money is seriously on the line people care.

[mrgoldenbrown]

Reference checks aren't what matters, it's referrals and getting a job that wasn't ever advertised, because someone knows you're good and offers you the position directly.

[krainboltgreene]

Can confirm 17 years in, past performance has never impacted future job prospects.

[jmyeet]

You are touching on what I would classify as two different kinds of layoffs.

If you're working for a startup, a layoff is a likely outcome. Most startups fail. Those that don't often end up pivoting, often more than once, and cutting costs tends to go hand in hand with that.

Layoffs from big tech companies is a relatively new phenomenon, really only since the pandemic, and they're fundamentally different. It's actually the sort of thing that Corporate America has been doing for decades. In this case, big tech companies make money hand over fist yet they have layoffs, typically ~5% of the workforce every year.

These layoffs will be perpetual because the reasons for them aren't around controlling costs, avoiding bankruptcy or any of the "normal" reasons for layoffs. The goal is suppress labor costs. People fearful for their jobs aren't demanding raises or better benefits. Plus you can dump the work the 5% were doing onto the remaining 95% who won't say no because they're fearful for their own jobs. And that's the point.

The veneer of tech companies being mavericks who were employee-focused is completely over. A lot of the "perks", which are really just part of your cojmpensation package, are getting and will continue to get cut or just made worse through less funding. At some point, you'll start getting charged for those "free" meals.

In 10 years, all the big tech companies will be indistinguishable from Boeing, Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman.

[matrix87]

Actual salaries haven't fallen. The point of paying those salaries is you have to earn every penny. If they overhire and a bunch of people start taking the money for granted, that breaks down the social contract

Half of the perks e.g. sabbaticals or sleeping pods don't even make sense in a competitive working environment

[int_19h]

> Layoffs from big tech companies is a relatively new phenomenon, really only since the pandemic.

Not really. E.g. I remember the mass layoffs at Microsoft back in 2009, and that wasn't even the first one. Google also had plenty.

[ericjmorey]

> your behavior in this job has an impact on getting the next one

Don't over index on this. It's a small factor among many.

[milkshakes]

strong disagree. from extensive experience. it's a huge factor, and good referrals are really the only way to definitely get the job

[pknomad]

I respectfully disagree. Parent comment is hardly over-indexing; it's a big factor. The world may be big but the communities are small.

[65]

What ends up mattering more is your ability to form good relationships with co-workers at your last job and sell yourself on your resume.

Most of the people who end up getting high paying, high ranking jobs are not very skilled technically, but are skilled personally - even engineers.

So I'd say - do your job as well as you can (don't go too crazy with work), be friendly with people in your company, and phrase your achievements in terms of % value/speed/users added.

[creer]

When you are just starting, yes. But after a while, if you pay attention to cultivating it, you amass a significant network. Small factor initially, big one later if you work on it.

[Mc91]

> 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.

I sacrifice an evening - but not to my company, but to studying Leetcode to move on to the next company. I also have side hustles that I devote time to.

> 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.

I am helpful to most people when they need help, and they remember this. My code is clean and well architected and well tested, and they can see this too. They also know that I know the language and platform we're using, and general programming (and business) knowledge. Few care whether I'm a "standout contributor" in terms of getting many stories done. Actually if I have a good lead or manager I might go above and beyond for them in terms of doing more.

> a company will never love you back. But your co-workers will.

Well, this is correct. I help my co-workers.

Things are situational. If I got a job helping set up LLM's or something, I might dive in and work a lot of hours just because I feel it is benefiting me too. On the other hand I can be somewhere where it doesn't make sense to work more than forty hours (if that) a week.

[charlieyu1]

Don't really agree. The benefits you mentioned are already there for 50-70 percentile employees. Like doing a bit more than minimum, occasionally helping others, not slacking too much so others had to pick up your work etc. No benefits to bust your ass to be the top 5%.

And when more and more people are like this, the average quality goes down, so it is even easier to be average.

Pride in my work? Sometimes I have pride in my work. Doesn't mean I should open myself to be exploited.

[cricketsandmops]

My perception of work changed after a layoff last fall. I had the typical C-Suite reaching out and 6 months of severance. After giving over a decade of my time to a company and given 6 months of pay in return my thought process changed. I was offered a job due to their contacts, but I would be in a similar situation with no laws to protect me, so I decided to decline and left the country. I had a contact in Mexico... after reading about their labor laws I decided while the pay was 50% of what i made in USA. I didn't have to worry about layoffs. For perspective had I been laid off in Mexico and worked the same amount of time my severance by law would have been about 3 years salary. That was the bare minimum by law (if the company offered a savings accounts, which most larger ones have here). A friend in HR down here did some calculations and said I would have been most likely closer to 4-5 years because of stipulations in contracts.

[4fterd4rk]

Why would I recommend a standout performer for a position at my company? So they can outshine me? I never recommend the "true believer" tool, always the average performer I got along with.

[scarface_74]

"A players hire A players and B players hire C players”.

I’m not saying I am necessarily an “A player”. But I am secure in my skills and the ability to convince someone to pay me for my skills. I was instrumental in hiring three people at a job who were all better than me at the time. I learned so much from them while I was there, it helped set me up for my next job that was my first job as a lead.

Why would I want someone that can’t help me be successful at my current job and whom I can’t learn from?

Even there I would ask my then former coworkers first advice.

[reactordev]

It should be about raising the bar, not lowering it. You’d grow if you weren’t the smartest person in the room. Unfortunately this stance prevents one from seeing that.

[sim7c00]

true corporate strategist here... i recommend people i trust and beleive in and want to work with. if they can outshine me i can get better by working with them. i dont give a rats ass about my performance reviews. just quality of work and nice collaboration , preferably with people better than me.

[jimbokun]

So you don't have to spend a lot of time cleaning up their messes.

[psunavy03]

I bet you're a joy to work with.

[groby_b]

> leveraging job offers for raises, etc.

That is a double-edged sword. You can do it, but it really should come from a place where you're fully prepared to leave, and you'd really prefer you didn't. Sometimes, companies underpay. You should be continually engaging in price discovery, and you should demand to be paid what you're worth.

Just be aware that your company may well say "oh well, good luck", and the new company may be worse. In smaller companies, you might set yourself up for resentment if you stay. Large tech companies really will just coldly look at "is she/he worth it? Yes/no", make that decision, and move on.

> but when layoffs come your next job often comes from contacts that you built up from the current job, or jobs before.

You build those contacts by helping people, not by helping the company. (Also, referrals are massively overvalued, IMHO. I'm not seeing them happening very often - but maybe my friend group is an outlier. Wonder if there are stats)

> carrying around bitterness and cynicism is just bad for you.

Realism, however, is helpful. Your company will throw you away like a used paper tissue. Make peace with it. Don't believe the "we're family" BS, because you aren't. You're at best the equivalent to a sports team. And when the team doesn't need you anymore, you'll be let go.

And that's fine. What makes it painful is lying to yourself, pretending a company could actually care about you as a person. (Small carve-out: Tiny companies, with <30 or so people, still can manage to care)

That doesn't mean phoning it in, or doing shoddy work. It does mean being clear about the fact that you have to look out for yourself, your wellbeing, your health, your career.

You're right in that your co-workers are the only ones who have the capacity to love you back. But I can guarantee you that working harder won't make you more loveable. Work well, but be clear where your boundaries are.

[johnnyanmac]

> 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.

That hasn't really been true in my experience. This might be another one of those cultural shifts. work connections in general are looser and you need to do a lot more than just casually chat at work to really "stand out". People are arguably overworked and have no time to perceive who does what work how efficiently unless you're a direct co-worker or a lead.

I agree with don't be a grouch. No one like a grouch unless its calling out bad leadership. But I think being nice is better than trying to be the best. People remember how you made them feel, and current work (epecially WFH) may limit how much you get to impact a specific person's workload.

>On top of that, carrying around bitterness and cynicism is just bad for you.

YMMV. how you process that matters a lot. If you use some cynicism you can protect yourself. If youre all cynicism you become a grouch.

>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.

only in a market as bad as this where you don't want to go back to job searching. But normally, I wouldn't do this. Especially in my industty: give them an inch give them a country mile, and then that "crunch" period has become 70 hour workweeks for 6+ months.

[llsf]

> 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.

Yes, and that hurts that first time. Especially when you gave a lot (like some 70hrs weeks and then you immune system shuts down) or working during a funeral, in the back room...

[qnleigh]

This is surely a healthier take than the article's, but isn't there more to work than selfishly pursuing what's best for ourselves? If we pursued our careers because we find the products interesting and their objectives valuable, then shouldn't that be a big part of why we work?

Companies will grow and shrink, layoffs will happen, employees will make bad or unfair decisions, but at the end of the day, companies exist because we are more productive as an organized group than we could be on our own. Of course you have to be strategic, but ultimately the healthiest motivation for working I can think of is to just focus on creating something of value.

The core fallacy of this blog post is that he expects the company to value and appreciate him. He gives positive examples of helping customers and coworkers, but concludes that they were for nothing because he got laid off. But a company is not a person that can affirm or reject you. It's just some abstract way of organizing labor with some CEOs and managers doing their thing. It makes no sense to work -for- the company. Yes work for yourself, but also for your coworkers and the people the company serves.

[scarface_74]

I’ve also been working in tech for almost 30 years - 28.5 to be exact.

Work is purely transactional, I give the company the benefit of all of my accumulated skills and experience for 40 hours per week, they put money in my account and I then use that money to exchange for goods and services.

Whenever one party or the other decides that the transactional relationship is no longer beneficial, we part ways.

If I find a company where the transaction is more beneficial - pay, benefits, work life balance, etc - depending on my priorities at the time, I go work for that company. I’ve worked at 10 companies in the past almost 30 years and 6 of those have been in the past 10 years.

> 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.

Uh yeah that won’t happen unless it benefits me in some way like I’m learning a new to me technology or finishing a project I am leading will look good on my resume.

I made an exception when I was working for a company that sent nurses to the homes of special needs kids and they wouldn’t get paid on time if the project wasn’t done - before Christmas. They would have gotten paper checks that they would have had to either pick up from their central office or get it mailed to them and when I was working for public sector clients during Covid and it helped them get their disability and unemployment checks on time.

[franczesko]

I can relate. My perception is that a company is for me, not the other way around. This really flips how work is handled.

[knowitnone]

"sacrificing an evening to a company that doesn't care...is worth it now and then" That same company will fire you and escort you out but expect you to give 2 weeks notice.

[eecc]

The brutal experience of “fire and escort you out” is a consequence of Usonian fondness for firearms: before that, another typical location for mass shootings besides schools was the workplace, where angry terminated employees would lash out bullets at the “sucks being you” managers that just doled out the news.

[sangnoir]

> I _strongly_ disagree with a fully cynical response of working only to contract, leveraging job offers for raises, etc

Would you consider employers to be "fully cynical" about their affairs and interactions with employees? I do. Being a happy little cog is it's own reward, but ine has to be clear-eyed about it.

> If people know you are a standout contributor then you will be hired quickly into desirable roles.

You are presenting a false dichotomy - one can be an outstanding contributor while working 40 hours per week.

[roguecoder]

I think employers are, and I think it costs them a ton of money.

My intrinsic responsibility isn't to the person handing me a check: we have an explicit contract. It is first to myself, second to the people whose lives are affected by the software I write, and third to my coworkers.

When developers pretend the relationship with an employer is just the two of them, they are giving up most of the leverage they have to change how their work functions.

[s1mplicissimus]

I think your comment bears some truth in that turning to bitterness is only going to tint a persons worldview towards an overall undesirable shade. Also it is absolutely necessary to keep up that "above and beyond" image for coworkers/managers to improve chances of a next successful hire. Mix that with the reality as described in the article and you get the play-pretend so many of us find exhausting

[jcmfernandes]

I can strongly agree with you while understanding how the OP feels (and I certainly don't condone all his advice). IMO, culture plays a role in it; as an EU citizen, layoffs are effectively rare here.

I was laid off once, when I was being widely praised for my work. It's been 5 years, financially it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, and it still hurts that it happened. So yeah...

[harimau777]

It feels like that requires an outgoing personality and great people skills that many people just don't have. There's lots of people who are friendly and pleasant to work with, but they don't have the dynamic personality that's going to lead to someone remembering them when an opportunity arises; even if they have they went above and beyond in their work.

[akavi]

It's certainly true that the charismatic have a better go of this, but after 12 years in the industry I've built up a solid list of quietly excellent engineers. Whenever I see an opportunity they could shine, I reach out to them.

Fortunately for them (and unfortunately for me), the industry seems to be fairly market efficient, and they're usually already happy at some other highly compensated position (Empirically, 1 M$/yr seems roughly to be the going rate for "Damn, I really wish I could work with that person again")

[scotty79]

> 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.

Guess what. That's cynical too.

> On top of that, carrying around bitterness and cynicism is just bad for you.

No, it's not. Cynicism is just having the correct model of reality and learning to thrive with it is the best skill you can possibly develop. But the first step is becoming a cynic. Overwhelming bitterness is of course bad, but it's not the end of the road for cynicism, it's just the beginning. A non-cynic can see only this and it looks to him like a cliff that would crush him. Seasoned cynic sits high on top of the cliff of bitterness he climbed, quite happy, having a clear look on both sides. On the world of people who fear cynicism and on the smooth hills on the other side that non-cynics can't possibly fathom.

[creer]

> If people know you are a standout contributor

Yes, each person's network is more important now than ever - as we seem to have achieved pretty thorough uselessness of classical job postings, job boards and applications. Some parts of building that network are simple: do ask people for contact info for example. And another part is simply showing up, doing work and getting it recognized by the people around you - that's more long term effort certainly but has nothing to do with how much you don't respect the corporation that employs you or the least palatable of your co-workers or managers. On the contrary, find the more competent people in that mess around you, and favor them.

Even the people you don't respect might easily some day be among the people in other companies that will need you. You may then do everything you can not to work for them, but even keeping that lack of respect out of sight is in your interest. (And okay, for some of these people it's hard.)

[slothtrop]

Anger can be a strong motivator. It's a double-edged sword, you don't want to sustain it.

[ToucanLoucan]

> but the most concrete is that your behavior in this job has an impact on getting the next one.

[ citation needed ]

Every job I've worked at has specified when we provide references, we're to say "X was employed from Y to Z" and if we would hire them again, yes or no. The employee described here would get a yes from me. The fact that they didn't go "above and beyond" will not help them get a job, at least if they happened to work for any of the companies I have.

> If people know you are a standout contributor then you will be hired quickly into desirable roles.

I guess we could quibble over definitions then, because I as a senior dev managing other devs am perfectly happy with someone who clocks in, does the work on-time and to-spec, and then clocks off as a "standout contributor." I've chastised a few people in my time for committing code on the weekends too, not because I don't appreciate their contribution, but because I consider it part of my job to prevent burnout, voluntary or otherwise.

Burned out devs turn out worse work, and they feel worse in the bargain. Textbook definition of a lose-lose. Whatever code is being a pain in the ass today is just that; code. It will be there when you get back from the weekend, it will be there when you get back from a doctor's appointment, it will be there when your kid is done being sick. Life matters. Code... does, but to a lesser extent.

> On top of that, carrying around bitterness and cynicism is just bad for you.

Which is why I don't want people feeling bitter about their job, and putting in the extra work to, by your own admission, be just as damn likely to get the axe for reasons that are out of your control? That's embittering as fuuuuuuuck.

> Pride in good work and pleasure in having an impact on customers and coworkers is good for you.

False dichotomy. I love what we build, and I want my subordinates to have fulfilling, happy lives. And I proportion my energy to both of those things in accordance with their importance.

[9rx]

> I've chastised a few people in my time for committing code on the weekends too, not because I don't appreciate their contribution, but because I consider it part of my job to prevent burnout

The best way to avoid burnout in my experience is to work when you have "the itch" to do it. If you're feeling it on a Saturday, why not go for it? You might not be feeling it on Monday and will need the break then instead. If you forego the prime opportunity and then force yourself to do it later when you are not in the right mindset, that is when the burnout is going to get you.

[_dark_matter_]

FYI that burnout is not "working a lot". Burnout is the feeling of little control, ineffectiveness, COMBINED with stress. Working weekends could instead be an indication of excitement and enthusiasm, which as a manager is worth nurturing. Over time those kinds of people should be given broader ownership and the ability to delegate, where they see fit.

[pavel_lishin]

I don't think it's references that matter, as much as reaching out to former coworkers who have jobs elsewhere, and can be your "in" to a new job.

[roguecoder]

If people are seeing the only way to be a "standout contributor" being about putting in more than 40 hours a week, we may have found the disconnect.

I don't work more than 40 hours a week, but when I slack off I just do the work put in front of me. Rather than hours, it's about energy.

If companies want more than 40 hours a week, we can negotiate overtime. But I put extra energy in during the work week not because I think it makes me extra money or protects me from layoffs. I do it just because I think it is better.

[seanc]

We're not as far apart as you might think. Clock time is correlated with performance, but by no means determinative. More important is initiative, enthusiasm, leadership, reliability, etc. All in, I work very little overtime.

And you're right, this is a marathon, and working sustainably is absolutely the most important thing. One can do both. If you love what you build and you're leading a balanced life then I would say you're Doing It Right.

[code_for_monkey]

spoken like a person with other people in their lives that they care about. You seem good to work for. Thanks.

[some_furry]

> 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.

This is an argument in favor of managing optics. Whether people perceive you going above and beyond may matter, even if actually going above and beyond truly does not.

[hintymad]

> I _strongly_ disagree with a fully cynical response of working only to contract, leveraging job offers for raises, etc.

Totally agreed. A big downside of taking contracting job is that one does not get equity. There can be exceptions but in general equity is reserved for permanent employees.

That aside, I highly recommend people view the employment as an alliance. When employee aligns with the company, work hard. When the alliance is not there, break apart and no hard feelings.

[scarface_74]

By “equity” do you mean statistically worthless equity in a private company?

Most companies don’t give equity. But even if you are talking about equity in the form of RSUs in public companies. It’s just comp. I’ll take guaranteed cash comp any day. When I was getting RSUs, I had it set to immediately sell as soon as I was vested and diversified.

Employment is not an “alliance” it is a transaction, they pay me money, I give them labor

[toast0]

Contractors can get equity, it depends on the contract. But ISOs are available to contractors, and RSUs are too.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> Pride in good work and pleasure in having an impact on customers and coworkers is good for you.

My thoughts, exactly.

I do good work, because I can’t live with myself, if I don’t.

[NotAnOtter]

> next job often comes from contacts that you built up from the current job, or jobs before

I've been in this field for ~7 years and have never found this to be true, yet people parrot it all the same. I have never once received a job via reference, and only once was able to get someone else a job by reference. I feel this is only true when you're at the very senior level.

[krab]

Only my first job after university was via a regular advertisement and application. The other jobs and contracts happened thanks to:

- one of my bosses

- me talking at an event and meeting another speaker

- getting recommended by a person that knew me

[whoknowsidont]

>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.

No it doesn't.

[closeparen]

The most your ex coworkers can do for you at a decently paying corporate job is get you past the resume screen. And even then, there are constant complaints at my employer about our recruiters never contacting our referrals. The person referring can certainly not be allowed even the appearance of influence over the interviews or debrief.

You might be hired on the strength of reputation or recommendation into an early stage startup, but these roles only make sense if you’re 23.

[cricketsandmops]

The referrals come from the c-suite. They can call up board they're on and friends that they have. I was laid off last fall and went straight HR told them where i applied and they reached out to the ceo and he called someone with me in the office. Had a job offer 1 week later

[anotheryou]

Also you get payed 60% for a year on unemployment benifits in germany (or until you find a new job), which is amazing.

[bergie]

There is a cap to unemployment benefits, and at salary levels of most tech workers it is nowhere near 60%

[spandrew]

This is good advice.

People who do good work, and get good at craft, do it as much for their sense of pride as they do for some kind of reward. Rewards are nice, but the joy you get from them are fleeting. Enjoying the work itself is evergreen.

Work is work. Even at a job you like, you'll have days where you'd just rather be out having a day off. Don't get indoctrinated into hustle culture.

But don't get cynical and start being a pleb about jargon or whatever. It's like a person stuck in traffic complaining about traffic as if they aren't... traffic?

[betaby]

> your behavior in this job has an impact on getting the next one

Not my experience.

[yieldcrv]

I’ve never been hired from contacts so maybe they all accurately think I’m a sellsword and it hasnt affected anything

I mean sure I’d love smooth sailing at a FAANG interview with all my friends in the process. I know some of you guys are getting on niche teams that way

but in the mid market and other startups, I’ve found there are enough to go around. Reputation doesn't matter one bit, and the “glut” is in entry level and former FAANG employees only looking for FAANG compensation.

I just keep 2 mid market and start up roles at once if I have some financial goal and its close enough to decent FAANG compensation. I don’t put short stints on my resume, and get exposed to a lot more.

My only studying is bombing another startup’s interview process and using what I had forgotten to ace a subsequent one

I could study to get above average FAANG compensation that would eclipse my 2-job situation. but I’m pretty busy with 2-jobs and the market for speculation and trading carries the rest.

[trod1234]

Realism is easily mistaken for bitterness and cynicism.

The TL;DR of the article is about not doing more than you are paid to do. Not going above and beyond, and that's a reasonable approach to take in today's environment.

Companies have been exploiting these type of people for decades, and its gotten worse in recent years so much so that people have died working for some black companies.

At the end of the day, there is no amount of pay you can receive that is worth your sanity or your life.

[asdf6969]

You have no self respect.