Layoffs Q&A and Videos

Feeling so bad for ex-colleagues, lost trust in leadership, don’t know when the next round of layoffs are. How do I gain motivation to start working like before?

Hi,

With tons of layoffs already happening and rumors about impending layoffs, is there something one can do to protect themselves? Logically, performing above expectations and being a critical part of the team would make sense. However, recently looking at LinkedIn and other career news, seems like no one can be sure that they’re safe. So, do you have any tips on how to approach this? Does it make sense to stay put within a team where you have great relationship with your manager and skip etc or find a new company to get ahead of this risk? Thanks!

This is somewhat of a rant as well, but please bear with me.

My current level is equivalent to that of an E4 at Meta. A Senior Level in my organisation is almost equivalent of E4 in Meta, while the next level is around E5. I have been trying to work towards a promotion since the last 2 years, working on RFCs, cross team projects, a lot of glue work, upskilling the team, writing a lot of documentation, reviewing outages and RFCs, mentoring junior engineers, delivering common libraries that can be used across the organisation, driving process improvements and writing tons of code. The last few projects were shipped without a single issue in production, despite being full blown revamps for services.

With layoffs happening in a lot of organisations (Twitter/Meta/Lyft/Stripe etc.), I am feeling a bit overwhelmed that it may happen to us as well, especially given the state of market. I am trying to keep my head low and improve myself. Brushing up the fundamentals right now. I am hoping that it would help me to improve in general as an engineer as well as in interviews, if need be.

My company required me to portray the next level behaviour for some time (close to 1-1.5 years) consistently to be considered for an up-levelling. Now with everything going around, Thinking that I may have to do the same for another 2 years in the next organisation hits me a bit. Overtime, there were some feedbacks I tried to fix - went through courses on communication and now it seems a bit unfair, even if out of control. I feel I could be overthinking but just feeling this way.

1. How should one act in such weather?
2. What is the best way to not feel overwhelmed and be sure to do what is best for one's career?
3. Also, are there any advices for the above career context?

I am a little worried about the potential of layoffs at Meta. I am not sure if I will get a needs support. I have been working on doing a design doc for the past month, and my manager has generally been very positive towards me. But I feel like I might get a NS due to my not submitting as many diffs and accepting as many diffs. I joined my team less than three months ago, and still technically ramping up. I would be sad if I got a NS or a pip, but it wouldn't destroy me.I guess my question would be how can I best buffer myself during these next few months, and how can I avoid situations like this in the future? What should I do if I do get put on PIP/NS?

Prepping for interviews always feels detrimental to actual career growth. At the same time, what are the things one should look out for to avoid getting laid off and jump ship when things are about to go south.

One advice mentioned often is to look for finances of the company, but I am not aware how to analyse it. Can you help with resources for the same?

I imagine these orgs will be safer from layoffs right? I'm interested in AI/ML fairness, but I have some reservations about pivoting there as they won't directly produce revenue for Apple.

I'm considering joining a new ads org, and I was wondering what working in ads was like overall since I've never worked in ads before.

A more specific question: There's a lot of competition in the online ads space nowadays - Will that make ads orgs more prone to layoffs as they find trouble gaining traction in this crowded market?