I wonder when (if ever) the companies realize that demoralizing your workforce (and destroying that sector of the job market) doesn't have only advantages.

I know plenty of people that reacted with the desired fear, putting in long hours to avoid layoffs, willingness to accept lower pay because the job market sucks, etc. - but I think there are also plenty of the the mythical 10x engineers that just checked out, stopped being 10x engineers, and are just collecting their paychecks and waiting for the layoff now. And I'm not sure you can "get them back", ever.

At least some companies reacted to this with more top-down management, stricter metrics etc. which kills motivation further and leads to metric optimization. Tell a good, smart, motivated engineer that you want more AI usage, and he's going to maybe start using some AI where it makes sense, but mostly ignore the metric while trying to do useful work. Demotivate the same engineer and make clear that his paycheck depends on metrics, and he'll give you what you're asking for, except https://github.com/dtnewman/burn-baby-burn is probably not what you _wanted_...

Yeah, working harder to avoid a layoff in a big company doesn't really work out - by the time you know about the layoffs they've probably already made their decisions about who stays and goes anyway. Plus that higher rate of effort might be unsustainable and you end up leaving on your own accord anyway or burning out. Layoffs somewhat change the employment arrangement too for the people that stay: "we pay you the same but now you're expected to do the work of the missing people"

The problem with such a culture of fear is that the Good Ones(tm) take it as a hint and jump ship; as they're good, they have no trouble finding a job and leaving. But the Mediocre Ones(tm) know that they won't be able to find a comparable job, so they bring the knives out and it becomes a Lord of The Flies situation.

Thus the company gets hurt 2 ways: good ones leave, and bad ones stay, making the lives of everyone else miserable.

Read “The Gervais Principle” https://ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-t...

I think it explains everything, most companies are optimizing for “confused” - a class within the framework of people who work hard for no reason.

Not saying it’s the best but it’s certainly a way to do it, and probably becomes inevitable once the company is big enough.

I also think it closely parallels the practice of companies being actively hostile to their customers (or Pareto optimal as they might see it). Big companies would rather provide an offering that suits them, actively mistreating their customers, and just target customers that will go along with it rather than wasting time on customers that want some less profitable version of the offering.

I m also betting there are a ton of fairchildren skunkworkers walking out with some better version of the secret sauce right now. I actually expect a cambrien explosion of good, lean software after the big 4 died in the shit shell made from aixcrement.

Yup, I was once one of those 10x engineers who had been “amazing at the job” but now I’m just collecting a paycheck, waiting for my layoff. I’ve been completely exhausted from the hundred thousand layoffs happening. I have friends at other companies who are just getting pips despite having great accomplishments. Employers have figured out that they don’t need to pay severance that way.

> I know plenty of people that reacted with the desired fear, putting in long hours to avoid layoffs, willingness to accept lower pay because the job market sucks, etc. - but I think there are also plenty of the the mythical 10x engineers that just checked out, stopped being 10x engineers, and are just collecting their paychecks and waiting for the layoff now. And I'm not sure you can "get them back", ever.

In general it seems that companies are pretty bad about this type of logic. It's the same issue with trying to force attrition through "return to office" or similar things as a way of getting the cost cutting without having to pay severance; the people who will walk away are the ones who are have enough money to not need immediate employment (who are more likely to be from the higher-compensated members of the workforce, which in a competently-run company would be the most valuable ones) or who know they're in high enough demand to be able to find something else fairly quickly, so likely the ones who they should be trying hardest to retain. This is pretty much the exact opposite of what they actually want, which is to stop paying people who they don't need.

Exactly. With the broad layoffs some companies do, you learn the company doesn’t value you, so why should you value the company?

Plenty of people still work at Meta and are applying. Trying to get the good money, Meta on the CV, move on to another overpaying tech co, grind a few years and never have to work again.

I don't think in large companies or names like Meta, the top brass actually care what the moral amongst workers are. I was at Accenture when they let a lot of people go. I watched very talented people just leave. Nothing changed. Management couldn't care less. They could always hire anyone they want/need to.

> I think there are also plenty of the the mythical 10x engineers that just checked out

I don't think that should be the real fear. The real fear is those 10x engineers still putting in equivalent effort, but now having to spend mental capacity on positioning themselves for future layoffs and worrying about getting fired.

I think we greatly underestimate the performance boost there is in security. When you don't have to worry about plan b, you can be so much more efficient at plan a.

"That’s my only real motivation: not to be hassled. That, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired."

Never — remember, these people believe 3 things:

1) empathy is a weakness

2) introspection is a waste of time

3) move fast and break things

The only introspection will be along the lines of “we should have moved faster and broken more things”; because of (1) and (2), it can’t progress to the level of “maybe we were completely wrong in a fundamental sense”, because they just don’t perceive human minds outside of their own (they really do view us as NPCs).

You also kill the people who would have become highly-productive in the future. Their early career is defined by trauma that they learn is the norm, and they spend the rest of it reacting to real and imagined threats based on that norm.

This goes for the economy writ large. There are two generations of Americans who have been taught that housing is unstable, and that so is their paycheck, and that neither political party will lift a finger to help in any meaningful way (i.e., one that sacrifices donor sentiment and dollars). It's like the opposite of postwar Europe and Japan. How do you fix half the country not believing in your economic model?

Using that tool has gotta be a fireable offense, right?

If you don't think companies realize this I suggest you talk to some leaders. It's a very obvious issue with any layoff and is why they are usually the last option.

Unfortunately for boards and ceos, software engineers arent dumb. If they see your bottom line explode while their workload increases and their pay doesn't, they will not give you 10x. Honestly I'm surprised if people are even giving 0.5x in the current climate. Engineers need to stop trusting big companies to get their back.