Naturally, he is very disappointed but he should keep things in perspective. It's not that bad of situation to be in. You have 15 years of software development experience at Microsoft and there are going to be a lot of open doors. This could really be blessing in disguise.
I hope this person is OK but that strikes me as unrealistic. Ageism is a real problem for software developers, but also that 15 years at MS could just as easily be viewed as a negative than a positive.
yup. you're not hurting for .net / sql dev roles in the Puget sound area. Starbucks, Expedia, Nordstrom, and any number of other consulting firms and smaller dev shops.
Of course - Node, Rails, Django, Spring etc wouldn't be bad to learn.
I was also sent off from Microsoft last Thursday. What a day. My observations:
- This was the best kept secret ever at Microsoft. Many VPs and directors were not knowing until the day of.
- It's clear the layoff decisions were not personal or based on talent or seniority, but just rather the high executives each doing a large pruning of their own branches. Whole branches of the company being lopped off because they had no role in the future picture. Especially after the Nokia buyout the total headcount was too high so this was also to get headcount under control.
- Severance terms were good.
Overall I can't blame Microsoft. Their competitors are making much more hay with much less people.
I'm not against H1B visas or green cards for skilled immigrants and, in fact, have great friends who fit that profile. However, considering this massive layoff, what reason could Microsoft and Bill Gates have to lobby so aggressively for H1B high-skilled tech talent, besides wanting cheap labor?
Because the H1B process is pretty broken right now. Very skilled people can be denied a visa because the quota is filled with less talented developers that got lucky.
Hopefully things work out better for him outside of Microsoft. Microsoft is just another big company these days, and their policies and products reflect/have reflected that for quite awhile. Work for yourself, or work for a small company, you'll feel more rewarded and hopefully like a more important part of the team.
My 2 cents after having worked for a huge company and now working at a small company.
I feel bad for the guy, but Microsoft really does need to reinvent itself, and the deadweight of a huge Windows-focused testing-QA bureaucracy wasn't going to help that mission.
After 15 years at MS, this guy is probably unemployable anywhere else unless he is open to learning new things and retraining.
Big company people often just learn how to operate in a big company environment, and forget how to do real work.
After 15 years at MS, this guy is probably unemployable anywhere else unless he is open to learning new things and retraining.
I've not seen the video so I don't know what he was really doing in Microsoft, but you know that there are other places where Microsoft software is used outside Microsoft, right?
I don't get whz he should be unemployable anywhere else..
Ageism is overblown to the point of being a myth. I'm 34 as well, my resume is not really that impressive, and yet I've had interviews with Google, Samsung and Amazon (+ some name-brand statups) in the past 6 months. Sure, I didn't land any of them, but I wasn't far off. If you're getting interviews, they want to hire you.
Caveat: Ageism is probably a real thing in small startups, to their own detriment.
"Let's hire 23-year-old Stanley who can't program for shit because he's got a strong hairline and wears a hoodie and Converse! Fuck that old guy with 10 years of direct experience!"
I'd love to be laid off with a good severance. It's an extended paid vacation.
It might be a slam to your ego, but every doer out there needs to know, you are seen by management as a cog in a machine, easily swapped out. Everyone is replaceable.
If you regard it as an "extended paid vacation" there's a good chance it's going to impact your earnings for years if not decades.
It may be an opportunity to work on your side projects, get some training/education, reevaluate your options and direction, etc. but it's not a vacation. It's "unemployed" and just having that gap in your resume/job applications can really start to hurt you - in part because other people aren't treating it as a vacation. If you're a cog but nobody's chosen to slot YOU in place of someone else "easily replaceable," what's wrong with you? "What did previous interviewers see that I'm missing? Meh, he's a cog, why risk it, 'NEXT!'" Just ask some of the long-term unemployed about how hard it is to even get a call back.
Even if you avoid that, one of the questions you're going to get is "What have you been doing since you were at XYZ?" and you'd best have an answer.
For most people, it's extremely risky to treat a severance package as a vacation. You should typically start looking for your next job immediately and with considerable haste and seriousness.
A gap of unemployment on your resume, for any reason, is going to hurt 90% of job seekers.
Getting laid off after 15 years at a large tech company is a very scary notion. For aspiring developers, here are some encouraging thoughts:
Pay is currently sufficiently high that you could, with a sufficiently frugal lifestyle and prudent investment habits, go from zero to millionaire in that time period. Being a millionaire isn't what it used to be, but that would provide one hell of a buffer should you find yourself laid off after 15 years.
Think of it like this. If your total compensation over that period averages $150k, that's about $7.7k/month net in CA, $8.8k in WA. If you can invest $4k of that per month at a conservative 4% annual return, you'll have $1M in 15 years; about $1.2M if your return is 6%; and about $1.4M if your return is 8%.
This is all assuming that you have don't marry a spouse during that period who is also earning an income and helping boost those savings.
This is just a back of the envelope calculation, but my main point is that if you're dedicated to the task and you work hard, you can create for yourself a very strong safety buffer over the course of a 15 year career in the technology industry. $1M is almost enough to retire off of if you were to move to a rural area of the country and continued to live frugally--health insurance would be your most costly concern.
There's the slight problem of there not being a conservative 4% annual return and inflation. How about marrying a spouse during that period who is raising your children and not working? Also that 1M is basically your house (or a portion thereof).
I think the reality of our generation is that the middle class (and yes, these guys are all middle class) has faced erosion of its standard of living. Salaries for engineers have barely kept up with inflation (in some case simply not) coupled with higher risks. Just as you say, being a millionaire ain't what it used to be and a lot of these middle class families are far from being millionaires. MS like many other companies is hoarding it's cash and helping increase the class gap.
That said it's still better to be an engineer in MS with a good salary than a homeless drug addict. Clever/frugal/single/some people can save money but it's not as easy as you make it sound.
Housing costs don't really make it practical in WA to put away $4k/month when you're pulling in $6-7k/month after taxes. A mortgage on any decent-ish place is going to be around $2500-$3500+ a month. If you just bought a place recently your savings were probably tapped out out to come up with the $100k+ down payment. It's definitely possible to save a lot of money, but $1 million in the bank is pretty tough IMHO.
On the flip side, being "irreplaceable" isn't necessarily a good thing either because it generally means you are needed for one specific task that will stagnate your professional growth.
He says that he will try to be a youtuber full-time now, but I don't think that it will last very long. He was definitely earning a lot more while he was working in Microsoft, and working on videos full-time while he only has <150k subscribers seems a bit low, especially considering his son's situation. He obviously has plans to make his channel grow and has to be earning a fair amount to make this decision, but I think that it would've been a better choice to just keep youtube as a hobby and apply for a different job in a company or become part of a start-up.
This particular guy's future aside, I wonder what exactly Microsoft's "future picture" is that they chose to lay off what seems like a large number of talented people. How will the company function without the people in key roles? I wonder how they will relocate the remaining manpower so that they will continue to be successful.
It made me a little sad but ultimately when he said he wants to be his own boss it gave me hope. I believe we're in an age of personal empowerment for developers and others in the industry. The idea of a one man shop isn't so far fetched these days.
COBRA is an extension of your ex-employer's healthcare program that you pay out of pocket.
You have always had the option to either buy COBRA or buy individual coverage on your own. Often it is cheaper to buy individual coverage through private insurers than to buy COBRA, especially if you're willing to settle for catastrophic-only insurance.
Obamacare is a new Marketplace for buying individual coverage that includes regulations on the types of coverage offered and includes subsidies if you make less than $46k over a tax year. Since Obamacare doesn't offer bare-bones catastrophic insurance it will often be cheaper to buy outside the Obamacare marketplace if you're not getting a subsidy.
Obamacare also has the awful anti-consumer feature called "Open Enrollment Period" which means you can only buy Obamacare insurance between November and February of every year, which makes it useless if you get laid off now.
COBRA is not only for health insurance. It also includes other insurance such as dental and vision. ACA only covers health insurance.
COBRA is still relevant for health insurance if you employer offers to cover part of health insurance premium for certain duration after being laid off. In this situation, you will come out ahead with COBRA than ACA. Also, ACA doesn't cover vision and dental for which you will need to go through COBRA to get decent coverage with too much restrictions.
Being laid off can really take a shot on your confidence but the approach you are taking seems to be a healthy one. You have also got a great set of skills to "fall back on" should bring your own boss not work out (I hope it does!).
I personally believe that Windows PowerShell desired state configuration experience is about to become worth its weight in gold as more Windows shops move towards automation. If you have any experience with DSE finding a rewarding and well-paying job in the future probably won’t be too hard.
It isn't because of socialism. It's an accident of the tax code. Medical coverage is tax-deductible for businesses (as an expense) but not for individuals. This loophole in the tax code was not closed by the recent healthcare reforms, which is a big shame.
I know a guy on the Entity Framework team who started working for Microsoft at the age of 19. He already had his BS in CS as well. I went to school with him.
I don't know what this guy's situation was but I imagine there many young & smart individuals at MS.
Honest question as a Canadian - what do you do about health insurance when you're 50 and get fired from your lifer job? Should you really have been paying for your own policy in parallel with your employer's so that you can continue with the low premiums post-employment?
Prior to the Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, you had up to 18 months of COBRA eligibility, meaning you could stay on your employer's plan but paid all premiums (expensive). During that time you frantically look for a job that includes healthcare coverage. Failing either of those, you might find junk insurance, or you simply go without and hope for good health. If your income is / remains low enough you might qualify for Medicaid, but you pretty much have to be at the poverty level for that.
Post-ACA you can now purchase coverage from any of a variety of companies through the exchanges. Rates are limited in that there's now a legal requirement that a minimum percentage of premiums must actually be used to pay for medical expenses (I believe 80 or 85%) so premiums are set accordingly. There are also income based subsidies that you're eligible for of your income is more than 4x the poverty level.
There was also an expansion of Medicaid eligibility up to 4x the poverty level with the additional cost being paid by the federal government, but some states have refused that expansion and money. This has left many poor in those states stuck unable to afford premiums and unable to get either subsidies or Medicaid.
Worried about insurance for your kid? Can't happen here, the government will deal with that. Losing your job? Get paid for one or two years by your work insurance. After that you fall back to a free basic income (for as long as you need). And still this system is generally not exploited: People work hard here.
And it's not just unemployment. There are people begging for money on HN regularly, because they are dying (often of cancer) and are now worried about their families. This is just cruel and can't happen that easily on this side of the Atlantic.
But it seems US citizens want to live like that. Why?
These days you go to your state exchange (for the putative ex-MS person, that's likely to be https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/), search for a plan, click on it and sign up.
It used to be worse, of course. But even then it wasn't a disaster for the case at hand: the COBRA act allowed you to continue to buy your existing plan at the same premiums for a year and a half until you found a new job.
A very reasonable thing to do is ask for a higher salary and no company insurance. You end up paying a premium (because the extra salary gets hit by income tax, while if the company had used it to buy insurance it would not have been subject to income tax), but you get to choose your own insurance and it doesn't stop when you leave.
Buying a parallel policy could help. I don't understand why the U.S. government has a tax code that effectively makes the most important type of insurance the easiest to loose.
[+] [-] badmadrad|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] huhtenberg|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nanidin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] badman_ting|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s_kilk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lightblade|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scuds|11 years ago|reply
Of course - Node, Rails, Django, Spring etc wouldn't be bad to learn.
[+] [-] wopwopwah|11 years ago|reply
- This was the best kept secret ever at Microsoft. Many VPs and directors were not knowing until the day of.
- It's clear the layoff decisions were not personal or based on talent or seniority, but just rather the high executives each doing a large pruning of their own branches. Whole branches of the company being lopped off because they had no role in the future picture. Especially after the Nokia buyout the total headcount was too high so this was also to get headcount under control.
- Severance terms were good.
Overall I can't blame Microsoft. Their competitors are making much more hay with much less people.
[+] [-] dapz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mc_Big_G|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] untog|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Infinitesimus|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] curtis|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fndrplayer13|11 years ago|reply
My 2 cents after having worked for a huge company and now working at a small company.
[+] [-] TheMagicHorsey|11 years ago|reply
After 15 years at MS, this guy is probably unemployable anywhere else unless he is open to learning new things and retraining.
Big company people often just learn how to operate in a big company environment, and forget how to do real work.
[+] [-] Ecio78|11 years ago|reply
I've not seen the video so I don't know what he was really doing in Microsoft, but you know that there are other places where Microsoft software is used outside Microsoft, right? I don't get whz he should be unemployable anywhere else..
[+] [-] throwaway12312|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway12312|11 years ago|reply
"Let's hire 23-year-old Stanley who can't program for shit because he's got a strong hairline and wears a hoodie and Converse! Fuck that old guy with 10 years of direct experience!"
[+] [-] buckbova|11 years ago|reply
It might be a slam to your ego, but every doer out there needs to know, you are seen by management as a cog in a machine, easily swapped out. Everyone is replaceable.
[+] [-] fencepost|11 years ago|reply
It may be an opportunity to work on your side projects, get some training/education, reevaluate your options and direction, etc. but it's not a vacation. It's "unemployed" and just having that gap in your resume/job applications can really start to hurt you - in part because other people aren't treating it as a vacation. If you're a cog but nobody's chosen to slot YOU in place of someone else "easily replaceable," what's wrong with you? "What did previous interviewers see that I'm missing? Meh, he's a cog, why risk it, 'NEXT!'" Just ask some of the long-term unemployed about how hard it is to even get a call back.
Even if you avoid that, one of the questions you're going to get is "What have you been doing since you were at XYZ?" and you'd best have an answer.
[+] [-] nilkn|11 years ago|reply
A gap of unemployment on your resume, for any reason, is going to hurt 90% of job seekers.
[+] [-] nilkn|11 years ago|reply
Pay is currently sufficiently high that you could, with a sufficiently frugal lifestyle and prudent investment habits, go from zero to millionaire in that time period. Being a millionaire isn't what it used to be, but that would provide one hell of a buffer should you find yourself laid off after 15 years.
Think of it like this. If your total compensation over that period averages $150k, that's about $7.7k/month net in CA, $8.8k in WA. If you can invest $4k of that per month at a conservative 4% annual return, you'll have $1M in 15 years; about $1.2M if your return is 6%; and about $1.4M if your return is 8%.
This is all assuming that you have don't marry a spouse during that period who is also earning an income and helping boost those savings.
This is just a back of the envelope calculation, but my main point is that if you're dedicated to the task and you work hard, you can create for yourself a very strong safety buffer over the course of a 15 year career in the technology industry. $1M is almost enough to retire off of if you were to move to a rural area of the country and continued to live frugally--health insurance would be your most costly concern.
[+] [-] YZF|11 years ago|reply
I think the reality of our generation is that the middle class (and yes, these guys are all middle class) has faced erosion of its standard of living. Salaries for engineers have barely kept up with inflation (in some case simply not) coupled with higher risks. Just as you say, being a millionaire ain't what it used to be and a lot of these middle class families are far from being millionaires. MS like many other companies is hoarding it's cash and helping increase the class gap.
That said it's still better to be an engineer in MS with a good salary than a homeless drug addict. Clever/frugal/single/some people can save money but it's not as easy as you make it sound.
[+] [-] tdicola|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] socrates1998|11 years ago|reply
There is no more "lifer" jobs.
[+] [-] billmalarky|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tactic|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2J|11 years ago|reply
This particular guy's future aside, I wonder what exactly Microsoft's "future picture" is that they chose to lay off what seems like a large number of talented people. How will the company function without the people in key roles? I wonder how they will relocate the remaining manpower so that they will continue to be successful.
[+] [-] smrtinsert|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianstallings|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billmalarky|11 years ago|reply
Though his risk is offset by being able to find a job if need be rather quickly I would think (being an ex-microsoft engineer).
[+] [-] ausjke|11 years ago|reply
I thought OBAMACARE is beneficial for those who got laid-off, as low income got a huge discount, is it?
[+] [-] guelo|11 years ago|reply
You have always had the option to either buy COBRA or buy individual coverage on your own. Often it is cheaper to buy individual coverage through private insurers than to buy COBRA, especially if you're willing to settle for catastrophic-only insurance.
Obamacare is a new Marketplace for buying individual coverage that includes regulations on the types of coverage offered and includes subsidies if you make less than $46k over a tax year. Since Obamacare doesn't offer bare-bones catastrophic insurance it will often be cheaper to buy outside the Obamacare marketplace if you're not getting a subsidy.
Obamacare also has the awful anti-consumer feature called "Open Enrollment Period" which means you can only buy Obamacare insurance between November and February of every year, which makes it useless if you get laid off now.
[+] [-] akg_67|11 years ago|reply
COBRA is still relevant for health insurance if you employer offers to cover part of health insurance premium for certain duration after being laid off. In this situation, you will come out ahead with COBRA than ACA. Also, ACA doesn't cover vision and dental for which you will need to go through COBRA to get decent coverage with too much restrictions.
[+] [-] mercwear|11 years ago|reply
I personally believe that Windows PowerShell desired state configuration experience is about to become worth its weight in gold as more Windows shops move towards automation. If you have any experience with DSE finding a rewarding and well-paying job in the future probably won’t be too hard.
[+] [-] _random_|11 years ago|reply
I wonder how many staff will be replaced by cheap(er) fresh immigrants in the end (I am not against immigration BTW).
[+] [-] humanrebar|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abhinavk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mimog|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vyrotek|11 years ago|reply
I don't know what this guy's situation was but I imagine there many young & smart individuals at MS.
[+] [-] sjg007|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acchow|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fencepost|11 years ago|reply
Post-ACA you can now purchase coverage from any of a variety of companies through the exchanges. Rates are limited in that there's now a legal requirement that a minimum percentage of premiums must actually be used to pay for medical expenses (I believe 80 or 85%) so premiums are set accordingly. There are also income based subsidies that you're eligible for of your income is more than 4x the poverty level.
There was also an expansion of Medicaid eligibility up to 4x the poverty level with the additional cost being paid by the federal government, but some states have refused that expansion and money. This has left many poor in those states stuck unable to afford premiums and unable to get either subsidies or Medicaid.
[+] [-] throwaway1dh9|11 years ago|reply
Worried about insurance for your kid? Can't happen here, the government will deal with that. Losing your job? Get paid for one or two years by your work insurance. After that you fall back to a free basic income (for as long as you need). And still this system is generally not exploited: People work hard here.
And it's not just unemployment. There are people begging for money on HN regularly, because they are dying (often of cancer) and are now worried about their families. This is just cruel and can't happen that easily on this side of the Atlantic.
But it seems US citizens want to live like that. Why?
[+] [-] ajross|11 years ago|reply
It used to be worse, of course. But even then it wasn't a disaster for the case at hand: the COBRA act allowed you to continue to buy your existing plan at the same premiums for a year and a half until you found a new job.
[+] [-] wyager|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walkon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GFK_of_xmaspast|11 years ago|reply