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Comment by ruralthinker | Hacker News Reader

I am a software engineer and I am a little worried seeing all these layoffs. No company will have 100% layoff, so it could be possible to weather this downturn? What could be the best strategy to get through this difficult period?

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This happens every decade or so. Don't live beyond your means and you will be OK, even if you get laid off.

These layoffs are because someone bought the company and saddled it with enough debt that it’ll take a billion dollars per year to pay the interest.

This is nothing like Stripe’s 14% layoffs from elsewhere on the HN homepage.

Nevertheless it does add to all the hiring freezes and layoffs we are seeing from other large companies (including, as you mentioned, Stripe).

Find ways to be better at your job. Speak up more. Take some initiative, solve a problem that needs solved. Be friendly. These are things we should always be doing, so the best time to do them was a year ago. The next best time is now.

I don't know the American market, but they are screaming for qualified developers in Europe and Asia where I work. I have been around long enough to know that if you are a good developer there will always be work for you. Especially if you are not super specialized and open to working with people.

There are plenty of highly paid dev jobs in the US too, it’s just that the market isn’t river-of-lava-on-the-sun hot like it has been the last 10+ years.

We went through a similar period in 2008. It's best to live below your means and increase your savings. It may take longer to find a new role when thousands of candidates are also looking and large companies have frozen hiring.

The best way to weather it is to sock away as much cash from your current job while times are good.

If a Bay Area techie at a FAANG can't swing a half a year of unemployment after working the Bay for 5+ years, something is wrong.

Labor supply will increase considerably, while labor demand declines.

Comp packages will decline across the board, or at the very least stagnate for years.

If you work for a fairly valued, profitable company, you’re likely to keep your job. If you work for a highly unprofitable and overvalued moonshot company, you likely won’t

Save a chunk of each paycheck.

move to a company which actually makes money, preferably doing something anti-cyclical. For example, whatever company conned Musk into thinking that they can assess the value of engineers immediately based on git contributions is probably going to have a great business, first going into companies and selling them the software that lets them do that. Then later when it turns out they fired the wrong people they can sell consultants to replace them. Then later when it turns out the consultants can't take over the systems well enough without the fired engineers they will be able to sell reduction services yet again.

It will take four years and several big bankruptcies before people catch on that they are being conned. By that time there will be other companies coming up that you can jump ship to.

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