How to Prepare for a Tech Layoff

[00:00:00]

Matt: Tech layoffs are here. They've been here for a while, and there may be more coming, probably more coming. Who knows? With the economy, with the changes in the works- the workplace with AI, uh, and even still some over-hiring sort of re-corrections from the COVID era, we are seeing tech layoffs. I mean, we just saw Oracle's recent tech layoffs.

We've seen many other tech layoffs. Microsoft's had some in the past, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And this isn't gonna be like a news episode where we zoom in on the Oracle ones, but this is inspired by the Oracle- the Oracle layoffs. I just saw the headline and then- and then we, we thought of this episode because thing is, is that when there's a layoff or, like, imminent or even when you think, uh-oh, like, the industry itself is not doing well, you can do some prep.

You don't- you don't necessarily have to sort of sit idle and just hope that you don't get laid off. There is some stuff you can do to prep. And so in this [00:01:00] episode we're gonna be discussing some signs that a layoff might be coming and also how to prepare as well as some other little tidbits as the episode goes on.

So if this sounds interesting to you and you wanna support the show, you can go and check us out on that Patreon, leave a review or rating on your podcast app, join us in our Discord server, or share this with your friends. And if you wanna help out not only yourself but us as well and you wanna learn how to code, Scrimba has got some courses for you.

They got front-end courses, back-end courses. Go onto Scrimba and learn how to code using their courses, and they have an interactive media player code editor where you can pause the lesson, mess with the code live that was in that lesson, and then press play and have the lesson pick up from where you left off. You can get up to twenty percent off a Scrimba Pro plan using our link. That link will be in this RSS description as well as in the show notes with full details on how it works in those show notes on htmlallthethings.com. Now, we're [00:02:00] gonna start off with something a little new. We used to do, if you're a, a longtime podcast listener, we used to have segments.

We used to have the weekly pain point. We used to have the web news, which we have since spin, uh, spun off. We kinda wanna introduce segments again. We're- we're playing with the idea anyway. We're flirting with it, and so we have kind of a working title for this sort of introductory one called the, the Weekly Takeaway.

Maybe it'll stick, maybe it won't. But it's just gonna be a place where Mike and I can share some of the takeaways during the week. Now I just wanna, you know, kinda preface this by saying the weekly pain point was sort of like a, a more like a, a, a complaint from the week. This might be a complaint. It might be a neutral thing, an observation.

It's what we're working on. Just something that you took away from the previous week because we record these weekly-ish... Sometimes we double record and, and, and things like that, of course. So the weekly takeaway, Mike, I've been gabbing away. What is your weekly takeaway?

Mikhail: Yeah, so this week I think my takeaway is going to be the kind [00:03:00] of full-on agentic loop system or the orchestrator that I've been working with. Um, so originally I kind of stuck to the really simple method of plan and then execute. So I, I got an agent to plan and then execute, uh, a different agent to execute or the same agent to execute, doesn't really matter.

Lately, I've been playing around with the idea of having the agent do kind of multiple different things at the same time. So what I have it do is, the main agent, something like a, a bigger model, like an Astra or a Sol level model, acts as the orchestrator, and it will-- I'll ask it to create a plan, an implementation plan, but then I'll also ask it to launch its own, uh, implementation agents.

So I'll ask it, "Hey, after you create this plan, launch a, like a, a, a lower class model agent," usually like a Luna, which is a lower, a lower end model from ChatGPT agent, to implement the plan. Then when the plan is [00:04:00] implemented, I, I ask, I tell it to, "Hey, then actually go in and check the plan. Check, check the implementation to make sure it sticks to the right plan."

Ask it to do any fixes and kind of go in this loop until it's done. And then at the end, I'll actually ask it... Or, or this is all in one prompt, by the way. In one prompt, I'll actually ask it, "Once you're, once you're satisfied with the result, deploy it and test it live on the server." Right? So that's how I've been doing some of my development over the last couple weeks, actually, but m- mostly over the last week.

And it's mixed, mixed success, I'll say that. It, it really feels like it's doing a lot, but my problem is, is that I just, I lose track of the changes, obviously, in this situation. Because before, what I was doing is after each implementation, I would take a quick look at the PR. I wouldn't read every line of code, but I would read the code.

I would make sure it aligns with how I wanted it to go. I would tell it to do some changes sometimes, sometimes I wouldn't, and then I would merge it in. So I would, I would have an idea of what's going on. With this, it might [00:05:00] create four PRs in this span. It might create 10 PRs, because if it does all this, implements it, tests it, notices a bug in production, it'll go back and create another PR, and another PR, another PR.

And it has gone off the rails for me a couple times i- where it went down the wrong path, and I came back and it's, I had to revert some changes. I have to ask it to change things and stuff like that. On the other hand, it has gotten pretty, like it has gotten a lot farther than, than I would have with like my slow method of checking everything.

So there is some positives, some negatives. I think I'm doing it wrong in some degree. I think I'm doing it right to some degree. But, uh- I, I'm kind of going backwards a little bit now, where I'm going back to my original method for the most part, and I'll sometimes get it to spin up an agent to do a little bit of the implementation itself, but I don't, I don't go through the whole process of actually having it deploy it and check it without me being the man in the middle here now.

So I'm-- I, I took some, some information away from that. I'm implementing it into [00:06:00] my own kind of workflow now a little bit. I have it do some work, some work with agents, but I don't trust it fully. Um, and I think that's the right iterative method to, for testing this stuff. You know, figure out slowly, go all in, and then dial back as soon as you, you realize it's, it's too much

Matt: I was gonna ask if you had, if you use, uh, anything like ChatGPT, like work mode. So you can kinda go in there, and it's kinda like ChatGPT plus, I'm just gonna call it, almost in a

Mikhail: Угу.

Matt: where it'll spin up its own little sub-agents. It'll... It has a little tab that tracks so many d- uh, documents if you're generating plans in PDF form or other things like that. Uh, 'cause I, I personally, I don't have this sort of like agent spin-off other agents and whatever. I think it's interesting that you're using multiple, uh, different LLM like models in order to like max- min max usage and, and, and use that usage effe- uh, efficiently. But, uh, what I usually often do is I will oftentimes plan in work mode or even just chat [00:07:00] mode, and then I take those outputs, and then I kinda go to the higher model 'cause I, I will use work or chat usually in like 5.6 or something, and then I'll go to my agent, which is Codex, and that's Astra, and I'll say, "This is kind of the stuff we've been brainstorming.

Like, what do you think?" then it, it kinda comes in with either a, "Yeah, that's great," or, "Oh, we should change this slightly," but it's, it's not doing all the thinking anymore, and so it's almost like a, a third opinion 'cause I'm, I'm the second opinion, I guess. then I'll be like, "All right, go ahead and build it."

Obviously, yours is a little bit more about building, what you're talking about. But i-in terms of my planning step, I am kind of iterating with like two separate things. 'Cause it kinda sounds like with your new method that you've tested and you've come back a bit now, the brain bottleneck happened again, where it's

Mikhail: Yep

Matt: whoa, there's like 18 things on my plate here.

What's going on?" And then that's just not gonna work.

Mikhail: That, that's correct. So there, there's a couple different things there. [00:08:00] Like, I don't use ChatGPT Work quite yet. Um, I, I just mainly just use Codex for, for even work-related things. Uh, I get the value of J- ChatGPT Work. It's like a dumb... not a dumbed down, but like a more UI-friendly Codex, but I, I don't need that.

I, I can, I can-- I, I don't mind seeing the scripts that it writes sometimes. I don't mind having that control. So that's why I use Codex. But, um, as for the model stuff, so like I typically find that planning with a higher-end model and like having that back and forth with a higher-end model gives me better results versus planning with a lower-end model and having a higher-end model then review and implement.

The reason I don't implement with the Astra, I would love to implement with Astra, but the reason I don't implement with, with Astra is I just don't have enough usage. Uh, it, it-- Like if I try to... I, I've done this already, and I've, I've burned through all my usage and had to use a reset. Um, if I try to implement anything with Astra, essentially my usage is gone in like an hour or two, uh, for the, for, for like the we- the, the [00:09:00] week, like essentially like six or seven days.

So

Matt: Oh, wow.

Mikhail: I s- I deliberately have it step down to Luna, which is like the really cheap model, and I have either Sol or Astra review Luna's work and then give it back answers. And that I found I can stretch it a little bit more.

Matt: Okay

Mikhail: even with that, I'm, I'm currently in a pro-- Like I currently have a usage problem.

Um, I'm not really sure what that attribute, what that's actually attributed to, but I'll figure that out later. It's probably beyond the scope of this segment

Matt: Well, I, I mean, I've hit my limit for the first time ever with Astra. I was like intentionally kind of playing with it and stuff, and it, like, it didn't even do that much stuff, and then it just kind of like ate it.

Mikhail: Yep

Matt: am on just like the $20 or $25 plan, and so it was like, I think I hit my like five-hour limit.

There's like some sort of like, you know,

Mikhail: Угу

Matt: a limit or something. Um, it gave me a reset. I didn't need it 'cause I, I had finished my work 'cause like the last thing I did was like, "Oh yeah, just commit that," and then that, that, that killed it. And I was like, "Well, I'm done my work for the day, so thank, thank you.

I don't care. I'll come back in, you know, whatever." I think it said like, "Come back in four hours or whatever." [00:10:00] Sure. Like I... Whatever, man. Uh, so luckily there, but, um, no, I think this highlights like an important thing in not only like you experimenting with workflows, but also experimenting with different language models and like, uh, it, it highlights, uh, something for the listener too, as well as us as like, hey, like, you know, experiment with different LLMs and different modes, you know, work mode or chat or whatever. Because if you're trying to stretch that usage, gonna be some sort of fandangling to be done there if you're trying to min-max it. Um, for me, uh, the weekly, uh, almost said the weekly pain point. The, uh, the weekly takeaway for me this week was that, uh, I actually launched, uh, uh, our new website. So not HTML all the things, but um, our...

We have an agency, Mike and I do, and uh, we kind of specialize in small business assistance, uh, getting you online, getting your Google My Business card or whatever it is they call it now, getting your website up and running. Um, because I was in IT, I can help with a lot of other things, so there's some other stuff that people get in trouble [00:11:00] with, like DNS beyond the website's configuration of the DNS.

I've helped people with that. Uh, web, uh, not websites, but, um, although yes, websites, but, um, what was I gonna say? Emails. Emails. I've

Mikhail: Mm-hmm

Matt: with emails, which obviously touches DNS and other things. I know how to set up, repair, modify, upgrade email servers, um, in an IT capacity, so I've helped people with stuff like that. I've had like, you know, in-depth conversations with small businesses. More or less the idea is to get them online. Uh, and so our website was very, very bare bones. Our entire agency business was, uh, basically just referral-based, and it still is currently. But we've decided to sort of branch out and expand more now, and so we've created this new website, and it's very, like, small business focused.

'Cause through the nature of the business and us helping people, we kind of realized like, oh, we are kind of small business specialists. Like, we, when a larger business comes to us, we can still help them, but we're very much a cog in the machine. But if someone comes to us [00:12:00] as a small business and goes, "I, I, I do yoga and I'm the yoga instructor, and I'm, I'm trying to find new members.

I want people to be able to book online. I've never, I don't know really anything about this online stuff," I have a million and one ideas for them. I know how to get them u-up and running. I know how to talk to them. I know how to convert their, uh, their sort of normal non-techie speech to techie, and then I know how to, like, get them up and running and help them get leads and things, to the point where we've revolutionized some people's businesses.

One guy a solo entrepreneur. He's, he, uh, s-solo and seasonal entrepreneur. His season has expanded due to the amount of calls he's getting. Uh, the, he also has a helper now, so he's, you know, now a two-man business. I think the per- other person might be part-time. But the whole point is, is that it's, we know how to help you and we're not gonna sell you Like for example, the one guy, he- most of his business comes from the Google My Business, and also assisting with his map.

There's like something wrong with his like map [00:13:00] point, and so we've, you know, laid out his property, whatever, made sure the signs are in the right spot. Then I put the pin right where the sign was, 'cause his property is massive, so people know where to like pull in and things like that. And that was like cru- you know, crucial little things like that, that he, he...

You know, he's a specialist in his particular industry. He's not an online specialist, and so stuff like that really helps. And then he just has a, you know, quick little landing page. And so that's what we-- That's... This new website is, you know, kind of an amalgamation of all that experience and stuff. So our old website was well over 10 years old, 'cause again, we just didn't use it for lead gen, but now we're gonna, you know, try to do that.

So there's some lead gen forms on there. Uh, there's a bunch of, uh, service offerings there, all kind of like, you know, small to medium business-focused in terms of the language. So you can, you can check it out if you'd like. Uh, absolutely. You know, it's digitaldynasty.ca. It's live. It's the first version.

There's plans to expand it and change things of course, and whatever. Again, just the first version. Um, some optimizations I'd like to do. Some, some images to compress even further. You know, a little kind of, you know, cross the T, dot the I thing, but everything is, uh, from a technical [00:14:00] perspective, is working, uh, as far as I know. So, um, you know, who knows? But that, that's kind of been my weekly takeaway, was, uh, getting that kind of built, up and running and... Uh, oh, and another quick little takeaway is that server was old, very old, still is, and there was a lot of cleanup to do. Now, nothing like privacy-focused, like nothing like that.

I always delete stuff like that if I need to. But just a lot of garbage. Like Mike, you made like your dad a gift as like a slideshow as a webpage like 10 years ago, and that was on there. We had little random text files on there where we would like, from a remote server, try to communicate to ours to like test, and it would just be something that says like, "Hello" or whatever.

There's just a bunch of junk in there. And so I, I cleaned all that up and put it all away and, uh, put it into an archive that will delete itself in, you know, or that I will delete in about 30 days if no one complains. But no one's complained, so went in there, fixed a couple of certificates that weren't renewing properly.

Thankfully caught those in time. One of them I didn't, but the website's kind of [00:15:00] de- decomm-ed anyway. But it's been, uh... it was a bit of, um, a trip down memory lane, but also like a new chapter, if you will. So it's kinda, kinda cool, but we just put that up less than 48 hours ago, or approximately forty- 48 hours ago, so see how it goes.

Yeah, if you need, need help with your small business, digitaldynasty.ca, go check it out.

Mikhail: Heck yeah. Heck yeah. No, that was, that was, that was a fun, uh, little thing that we kind of planned out and did and executed on. So it's a nice website. Go check it out. Um, yeah, I- that's great.

Matt: Well, thank you. I,

Mikhail: Yeah.

Matt: it, so I'm glad you like

Mikhail: Yeah.

Matt: utilitarian. It's very businessy, of course. It's not like, you know, the, the, the greatest, you know, art, art project of, you know, our time or anything. But it's, uh, it's meant to be, "Hey, we help small businesses," you know, no bull kind of thing

Mikhail: Yeah. Uh, it's an evolution from our in- initial very utilitarian website as well, right? Like, that was the first... So it, it, it's a very logical evolution [00:16:00] from that spot, which is nice.

Matt: there's actually like, uh, lead gen forms and like you

Mikhail: Correct. Yeah.

Matt: there and stuff. Before it was very much just like, "Yeah, just email us."

Mikhail: We should do a before and after post. Uh, I might, I might do one.

Matt: I still have the

Mikhail: 'Cause it's c-

Matt: up and running. It's just hidden so I can send you the link and the password

Mikhail: Yeah, send me, s- send me the link 'cause I might, I might,

Matt: I

Mikhail: I might post that on X. Yeah. Because it's such a drastic ch- drastic change. It, it's literally like 10 years or maybe 11 years, and we did not touch it. We did not touch it pretty much not even once

Matt: No, other than to add, 'cause we had a portfolio there well, and that was, that was another just, I'll just mention this very, very briefly 'cause we wanna get onto the, the, the kind of meat and potatoes of this episode. But one of the things that I, that we did is, in the past, was like let's say like Mike had like... W- what's your portfolio site's URL?

Mikhail: I think it's MikeK.me

Matt: Okay, so Mike K dot me. Let's say, Mike, you came to me and you're like, "Hey, I wanna have [00:17:00] a portfolio site," you know, yada, yada,

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: We would build you the portfolio site. I would ask your permission. You'd say, "Yeah." I would take a screenshot, write a brief description, and put like, you know, "This is Mike, Mike Curran's, uh, portfolio

Mikhail: Угу

Matt: put that in my portfolio, and then a link to it. Of course,

Mikhail: Yep

Matt: moved on, uh, people have like retired, and so it looks like we-- we're not active 'cause there's a bunch of like dead links and things in there, which is not great for SEO either. in, in reality, it's like, well, no, no, no, like the, you know, it's just this person needed our help because they were about to retire, right?

And so we did our job, and then the site shut down six months later. That was the p- that was the point. So that wasn't really thought through back then. So like now we do like a case study. Like, hey, is this client project something we want on the site to like show something that we know how to do? Some people only get maintenance.

Some people only get consulting. Some people, they have a whole, a whole relationship with us that moves forward for years and years, and I'm basically an employee there. you know, so it's, it, it's like w- let's do some case studies, let's showcase this, and have some [00:18:00] images, and we're not linking to their site.

I mean, you could figure out what website they're from by looking at the case studies. But the point is, is you can go in and be like, "Okay, let's, know, like let's get, let, let, let's get a look at like what Matt and Mike are actually building," instead of it being like, oh, there's a bunch of dead links here. yeah, we've been in business for 10 years, and some of these people were 60 when we got started. They stayed open for five to like seven years, and then they, you know, they, that was it. They closed up shop, so

Mikhail: That is correct. But yeah, I think that's it. We can probably get into the meat and potatoes of the episode now, uh, which is to remind you how to prepare for a tech layoff. Now, it's, it's been a rough few years, I'll be honest, uh, for the industry. I think ever since 2022 maybe, maybe 2023, in that, in that range, I haven't seen too much positivity in the tech, [00:19:00] uh, job market.

There's been some ups and downs, but for the most part, it seems like it just constantly all we're hearing about is layoffs. We're just constantly... There's still people hiring, let me be clear. Companies are still hiring en masse, and there's still huge salaries to be had and all that. Like, there's still that.

But- From like a perspective of, hey, is this, i- is your job secure? Is your job stable? That seems to be leaving the tech space, right? Like, if, if before you could rely on a Google job or a Facebook j- or a Meta job or a Salesforce job, whatever, those were like the, you know, the, the FANGs or the MANGs or whatever you call it, the big tech, the big tech jobs seem to be secure.

That has started to evaporate pretty quickly. These, these companies are doing 10,000 layoffs, 20,000 layoffs, 5,000 lay- Like, they're doing chunked layoffs not yearly, but like multiple times a year, and that's scary. [00:20:00] Like, all that stuff is scary. And it's not just them. It's smaller businesses, smaller, smaller startups.

Startups have always been kind of flaky, and that's one caveat I want to talk about in this episode is my own experience is very much startup related with this, okay? So I'm not a big tech guy. I haven't worked at big tech. I... The biggest startup I've worked at was like 150 people, uh, startup. That's a fairly big one, but it's still a startup.

Very much a startup. Um, I have not worked in big tech. So take that, take everything that I'm saying with that grain of salt. I have talked to big tech engineers quite often, uh, through the podcast, through the, the community and stuff like that. I have talked to them and I have talked to them through their layoff journey as well.

So I have some kind of analogies to share about that. But a lot of what I'm gonna be talking about is gonna be related to startups, so that's, that's kind of like the, the, l- like disclaimer of the episode from personal experience. But I, what I want to talk about in [00:21:00] this episode is kind of three things.

Signs that a layoff may be coming, right? And these, these will apply to startups or big tech. Preparing while you're still employed, so without signs, like what should you be doing, right? Like, what, you know, how do you get yourself ready if a layoff is on the horizon? And then what to do, kind of like the last steps that you need to do when a layoff is actually gonna happen and you know it's gonna happen, like y- or, or you have a very good indication that it's gonna happen.

So those are three kind of headline topics that I'll talk about, and throughout that I'll try to kind of give my own experiences with it, 'cause I've been on... I haven't been on the side of actual... Well, I've kind of been on the side of actual layoffs. Actually, yes, I, I have been laid off once from a startup, so I have some experience there.

Just it was a while ago now. I think it was six or seven years ago that I was laid off. Um, but for the most part I've actually been on the other side where I've been in the kind of leadership side. So I've been talking to the people that are planning to do the layoffs, and it's, that's, that has a whole other [00:22:00] set of, you know, experiences that I had.

Matt: I would also like to say one other thing, just really brief, is we're gonna jump into, like, signs that a layoff might be coming. Th- like, almost as a, I don't know, a disclaimer or a point of no, sometimes there are no signs. Sometimes it, it does, it does come out of left field and, and usually, and this is gonna be something that we talk about here, uh, i- in this, but sometimes, like, a restructure is so rapid, restructuring is one of the points of, like, a sign that a layoff might be happening.

"Hey, we're restructuring the company." Sometimes it's announced and it says, "Hey, we're gonna be doing this restructure over 30 days." Sometimes, depending on how big the company is, the brass might say, "You know what? That's it. We're g- we don't, we don't wanna do any... We don't wanna have anyone coding. We want them all to be AI," or, "We don't wanna make this product anymore, and so anyone who's specialized in that product or, or on teams that are making that product, that's it.

Get out." And that's it. And we see that a lot with something like video games where they hire, hire, hire to get a video game out, especially a [00:23:00] large game, and then once the game's out, the company m- even if they do amazingly well profit-wise, they're, "All right. Yeah. Thanks for your service. Bye. don't need you anymore.

Like, I don't need 1,800 graphic designers when I am not that deep into a second project, so see you later. Bye." Right? And like, and so sometimes the layoffs, in, in, in the case of, like, a game being completed, that's kind of a sign. But sometimes it's that abrupt without any warning at all

Mikhail: W- I- interesting that you brought up, like, the AI thing, like when a, when a, when, when a, when a CEO comes in and is like, "Okay, we're gonna do AI this, AI that." I actually think that that is one of the clear signs that there is gonna be a layoff. Um, and everyone that I've spoken to recently, like, has that feeling.

Now, I don't know if there's empirical evidence. This is more of, like, a everyone is feeling that way kind of situation, but it seems like as soon as a CEO goes down the path of being AI pilled or A- AI psychosis, that's almost an inevitable s- an [00:24:00] inevitable path, as long as they don't deer, uh, veer off of it for whatever reason, to them eventually scheduling a layoff.

Because in their minds, as soon as they go down that path, they're thinking, "Okay, how do I replace X amount of percentage of my workforce with this productivity boost so that I can generate more revenue?" Like, p-pro- or not revenue, I should say profit for the company, right? So I, I'll, I'll say that off the top.

Um, I think those kinds of discussions, as common as they've been, probably among a lot of people that are working in tech startups, larger companies, I do think that those are a path to a layoff potentially. Now, one caveat on top of this. One of these things happening that I'm gonna mention does not equal layoffs are gonna happen, right?

Even two of these things happening does not equal layoffs are gonna happen. It's more of, like, [00:25:00] okay, I've seen like three or four or five signs. There's signs now that a layoff has happened and I should prepare. Nothing is guaranteed, okay? So don't, don't, like, clock off as soon as you see your, you know, a sign.

What you need to do is you need to prepare, and that's what this episode is about, right? So the, the first sign I have here is a very obvious one, a hiring freeze, right? If there's a hiring freeze, or all of a sudden you look at the website and there's a bunch of open roles and they're disappearing, that is a very good early indicator that, hey, they're probably having money issues, or they're trying to look at restructuring or something else, right?

So that's a clear sign. Um, in the, in the same kind of breath, backfills. So a, a member leaves your team, gets fired, leaves for another job. They're not getting, they're not getting, uh, like, uh, you're not getting a replacement for them. That means backfills have stopped b- g- [00:26:00] being approved.

Matt: Yeah, your tea- your

Mikhail: That's-

Matt: headcount was five, now it's four, and they're

Mikhail: Or,

Matt: for a fifth

Mikhail: yeah. So they're just spreading the wor- the workout Anything to do with budgets.

So as soon as you're like, "Oh, you know, I, I, I need approval for X, Y, and Z," and you get declined when three months ago you were getting approved for everything, that could be seen as a sign. Now, this, this one could be just fiscal responsibility sometimes. S- sometimes, like especially in a startup, you'll see startups kind of ramp up, especially when they have funding, and they'll spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, and then someone, a more fiscally responsible executive comes in, they're like, "Wait, what are we spending this on?"

And a lot of times that doesn't necessarily mean layoffs. A lot of that time will be like, "Okay, well, let's be a little bit more fiscally responsible." So this one alone, in my opinion, does not, you know, lead to a layoff. But if it's part of a bunch of different things, something to keep an eye on. Um, uh, again, in the same breath, like travel, travel gets, uh, travel not being approved, software caps, like, oh, before you had [00:27:00] infinite, you know, you could, you could purchase any LLM, now all of a sudden the LLMs are too expensive.

You can have only this and this one. Again, alone, nothing, together with all this stuff, not great. Any sort of perks or, like, if, if they're starting to cancel off-sites, you know, saving money. You, you can obviously see when a company is starting to really button do- batten down the hatches and start to save money.

Treat that as a sign

Matt: I was gonna say something too before we kinda jump into... 'Cause you have some other, like, other talking points here. It feels like the most appropriate time to say that offering retirement to people

Mikhail: Oh yeah, for sure

Matt: is a classic sign where they're, they're starting to say, "Oh, we have some great retirement packages."

And

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: sometimes it's not so public as that where they, they'll mention that, although sometimes, sometimes they will in, like, an all-hands or a, a, a department, depending on how big the departments in the company is. They'll, they'll mention, like, "Oh, we have some great retirement packages," or whatever. But oftentimes they're kind of the, let's say the older, the [00:28:00] older or the higher seniority people on your team or your surrounding coworkers, they will be approached by HR or their manager, tech leads, whatever, and they're given, like, "Hey, you know, if you, you retire now, like, we have this great sort of, you know, severance package," or, "We're gonna include medical for you," or whatever it is.

Almost kinda like searching for volunteers before the headcount, uh, reduction becomes involuntary.

Mikhail: Yep that's very true Uh, and that happens at big tech, I wanna say. I wanna be like, it happens at smaller companies too. Yeah, it's really like Microsoft's, yeah, like all that stuff. When, when tech companies that have been around for 10, 15, 30 years, 40 years, which isn't a lot of small startups, obviously. Um

Matt: it, it happens too, like, I mean, as, as companies unionize, then people start getting pensions and things, and so there's, like,

Mikhail: Correct

Matt: There's long... Th- this is not a, a, this is not a d- definitive statement, but it's a kind of a generalized statement in

Mikhail: Yeah[00:29:00]

Matt: y- generally speaking, if the employees p- could potentially have long-standing ties to the company. You r- you have a pension from said company, you retire, you survive for, like, 30 years after you've retired, you technically have a tie to that company 'cause the pension's still coming in for 30

Mikhail: Угу

Matt: So then people are gonna s- try to, like, you know, come to you and be like, "Hey," like, "you should retire now because we're just...

otherwise we're just gonna kick you out," or, "There's gonna be worse redu- uh, worse retirement packages later." And, and, and, and often, like, I've, I've heard of, of stories like, uh, my, my, like, family and then my family's friends, like a lot of them are, are... they'll work in, uh, skilled trades. And so this happens, like, a fair bit 'cause a lot of them are unionized.

They will have a pension at the place, et cetera. And so then they will be approached, especially it's like, "Hey, you've been here for 20 years." And sometimes it's blunt and it's like, "Hey, you know, we're, you know, we're looking for people to kind of volunteer here." sometimes, uh, and they kinda like, you know, dance around the issue a little bit.

And sometimes they'll just say, "Hey, we're [00:30:00] gonna reduce headcount. We think you should take this deal

Mikhail: Yep. I mean, yeah, it's like, it, it's kind of like the approach of, "Hey, if you don't take the deal now, you might not have this deal later." That's, that's what they're implying. Yeah, that's what they're implying, right? So like, "Hey, we're gonna reduce headcount anyway, so you might have to take this deal." So it's a tough one.

That's a, that's alwa- like I, I can imagine that some people will take it, obviously, because they're probably maybe already close and they have enough co- in their coffers to survive. But it's tough for the people that don't have, that aren't prepared

Matt: Well, it sucks too for the seniority-based people.

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: are very, very seniority based and, and they'll be like, "Hey, like we, you know, we would- we- we're asking you to retire 'cause you can. Here's a really good deal. don't you let like the young guns, you know, stay?" And some people just won't.

They'll be like, "Nah, I'm just gonna keep working. Like I don't care if, you know, Bill gets laid off, like whatever."

Mikhail: I- ironically, this usually ends up biting them in the butt in terms of costs, like short-term costs I should say, because they [00:31:00] have to pay them the big pension, they have to pay them usually a pretty good severance for that, for their early retirement. And what ends up happening is that you're obviously laying off the most, like knowledgeable people, the people with the most domain knowledge, and they...

Matt: asking them to retire is

Mikhail: Sorry, whatever. Yeah,

Matt: them,

Mikhail: you're removing them from the company, but inevitably, their, their domain knowledge is so important that you will bring a portion or a percentage of them back on contracts, and the contracts are usually ludicrously expensive, um, because they're, they're usually short-term things and the k- the, the, the, the employee has all the leverage in that situation, so they have to offer them a lot of money.

And that ends up costing them quite a bit of money. Now I'm assuming in a long-term perspective, you probably still save money as a company and that's why they continue to do it. But in a short term, it's probably quite pricey and quite hectic and you probably lose a lot of productivity that they just are willing to eat, uh, due to the long-term savings costs and whatever health, like the, [00:32:00] whatever reports they need to show to the investors, it makes their reports look better.

That's, at the end of the day, when a big tech company makes those decisions, that's what they're looking for. They need to show that they're making more profits this month than last month, and this is one way that they can do that, even if they're burning more money by doing that, right? Like they, they have a path to the profit

Matt: It's also a PR play too, because it's like, "Oh, we didn't lay off 1,000, we laid

Mikhail: Yes.

Yes.

Matt: And then sometimes news

Mikhail: Although

Matt: oh, they asked for retirements, but it's like, hey, those

Mikhail: Ja.

Matt: people went voluntarily, and like that is,

Mikhail: Ja

Matt: is a fair point

Mikhail: To be fair, lately I think the PR over layoffs has started to sh- to not matter so much for companies. They're still bad PR, but I don't think companies care as much anymore. 'Cause before they used to like ... Yeah, before it used to be like a thing where companies would really try to avoid layoffs to not have bad PR so that they could recruit the best talent and stuff like that, because inevitably talent will go to companies that have the least layoffs if they [00:33:00] have the choice.

Like, if you ... But right now what h- what ended up happening, and this, you know, what- whatever, take this with a grain of salt, is all of the companies started to lay off so that that no longer seems like an advantage for any company. Like, there is no company that's not doing mass layoffs. I think Apple has a way to do it where they don't do mass layoffs, but they have a ton of contractors that they fluctuate on and off, right?

They, they're kinda smart about it. Um, and, uh, they ... To, to their cred- to their credit they're pretty good, so Apple might be one of the last, like, remaining big tech companies that's fairly solid, uh, if you actually get like a full-time job there. But

Matt: Ubisoft was a pretty solid or,

Mikhail: Gaming

Matt: limited, like, gaming, uh, studio with limited layoffs. I mean, they, they

Mikhail: For a short time there, yeah. Mm-hmm

Matt: really seem to have many layoffs. They d- they kinda like ke- seemed to keep everybody, and so there was limited bad news there. But now, unfortunately, they have laid off a bunch of people, so [00:34:00] I don't know,

Mikhail: Yeah. Quite, quite a bit.

Matt: on that

Mikhail: Yeah, yeah, quite a bit. A- and it's, uh, like I, I mean, across the gaming industry in general. But regardless, um, to move on here, let, let me just get, get through the signs of a layoff. Uh, one more thing that I wanna talk about really is the leadership. So anytime you have leadership changing their narrative in a way that seems off.

So one major thing that you should look out for is if your direct manager starts avoiding one-on-ones with you and starts avoiding, um, like talking to the team as a whole, and it's just, he's off, right? Like the, if the direct manager seems different in a negative way, then that is a good sign that they've got some bad news that they can't pass on to you.

People are inherently not experts at hiding this stuff. You can usually tell, right? Like I've, I've had that situation where I had some bad news and I still had to keep my face, you know, the same because that's part of the job of a manager. [00:35:00] But inevitably people know due to decision-making, due to how you interact with them, like due to the, you know, if, if you cancel a meeting that you shouldn't have canceled before.

Like all those little tells. If you start understanding them and you start realizing them, you can start to tell that there's something off going on.

Matt: you

Mikhail: So kee-

Matt: as an actor. Like

Mikhail: That's correct. Yeah. Like the, like if, if you hired an actor to be a manager, maybe they could be good, but like... And there's some... I'm sure there's some executives and managers that are amazing at keeping the poker face.

I'm sure there are, but I'm pretty sure it's a small percentage. So for the most part, you could usually tell when a manager has some bad news, uh, over the course of a few, few weeks and a few meetings that something will slip. And yeah, keep, take that, uh, again, with all the other stuff, all the other signs that that can be a very, very clear sign, right?

Um, that le- there's something in leadership, right? So keep an eye on your, your direct manager, uh, 'cause they, they will know... Not, not ev- N- Let me be clear. Sometimes your direct manager is part [00:36:00] of a layoff, so they might not even know, especially in a big tech company. Yeah. So in a sm- in a startup, that's less likely, right?

They could be fired, but less likely to be part of a layoff layoff. Um, uh, it's still, still possible. Very possible. But like in a large tech company, very possible that your direct manager is part of a layoff and they won't know anything. So this is not something that like you can rely on, but it's something you should look out for

Matt: Well, the, the one thing too, especially with a large company is oftentimes there'll be a fair bit of people on PIPs, like performance improvement plans,

Mikhail: Mm.

Matt: those people will get laid off first.

Mikhail: Absolutely

Matt: it looks like, oh, we're just getting rid of like the people on PIP. The pro- the pro- Like, that's a telltale sign.

Again, that's

Mikhail: Absolutely

Matt: That's a telltale sign. But the one thing that Mike mentioned, like your manager might not know, the problem with that is they get rid of the people that are, let's say, performing at an unsatisfactory level. Okay, all those people are gone. They still have 1,000 cuts. In some big companies, they'll have HR or some sort [00:37:00] of even a third party come in and they'll lottery the rest. So they'll literally just be like, "Okay, we know we wanna get rid of 1,000 developers. them," because they're

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: at satisfactory level. That's how you start seeing those videos of people when they do have like a YouTube, or they just post on TikTok even and it goes viral or something, where they're like, "Man, I had all my projects had their budgets approved.

I was like really, really busy every day and that project is continuing. Like, why was I laid off?" And it's just a number, man. Like, your number just came up, you're out. That's it. It's, it's because they're not gonna go through with a fine-tooth comb and find 1,000 people that they, you know, qu- quote unquote, like can remove without disturbing a lot.

They're just, "Get 'em out of here

Mikhail: Mhm.

Matt: just deal with

Mikhail: Ja

Matt: clean up later."

Mikhail: Yeah, exactly. And I think people like overestimate their value to a company a lot. They're like, "Well, if you lay off me, then all X, Y, and Z projects will, will go down." Companies realize this. I want you to be very clear. Companies very much realize that projects will have to be killed [00:38:00] or moved or delayed or be just like, you know, be ramped up back in.

Like they're, they're doing it with that in mind. They're o- ca- they're sacrificing things for the profits. Like it's... A- at the end of the day, it's for profits, it's for survival.

Matt: if the company's in trouble. Like

Mikhail: Correct, for survival or profits, yeah.

Matt: Yeah

Mikhail: lately it's been a lot about profits though, to be clear, like to be fair. Like a lot of these bigger companies, like Google is making record profits.

Apple, like they're all making record profits. They're not laying off because they're in trouble

Matt: Well, a- and, and I think that highlights th- that is a really good point. Like, that is a fact, and like, I, I, I do think that highlights a really good point is I keep seeing these stories, 'cause it's, I mean, it's a good headline of, you know, this company posted a billion dollars profit. It's higher than any other profit they ever had, and then they laid off 2,000 people. It, unfortunately, I don't think we can look... A- actually no, we cannot look at that as being a correlation. If the company's doing well, that is, that, that's great, and there's a, [00:39:00] there's a high chance that you will not be laid off because of financial problems, 'cause that's one

Mikhail: Sure.

Matt: one telltale sign of being laid off.

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: problem is, though, is just 'cause the company's good does not mean they're gonna say, "Well, that's great. We made a billion dollars. We don't actually need these thousand people. Let's just keep them on 'cause we made a billion dollars." No, get rid of them. May as well

Mikhail: Correct

Matt: maybe they'll may as well make 1.5 billion or whatever, you know, the salaries that'll add up to. That, so I know it's a great headline and whatever, but I think it is unfortunately time for us to s- like, not give companies the benefit of the doubt, 'cause those headlines come from kind of an enrage, like people get mad about that, and they're like, "Oh, people are chasing profits and stuff." Yes, they are, and I'm not saying that that's right, but we're moving into the, the next section we wanna talk about, which is being prepared, and I think part of being prepared is kind of knowing your...

I don't wanna say knowing your enemy, but that's kind of the same thing. that even if your company's doing well, I mean, there's a high chance that you're a [00:40:00] number. smaller

Mikhail: Absolutely

Matt: you're not, and like, there might be a little bit of, you know, more of a friendly vibe there, what have you.

But especially in a large company, like, you're, you're a productivity unit, and that's, that, uh, is the unfortunate reality. And I'm not saying that that's how it should be. What I'm saying is, is I want, like, people listening to this to realize, like, hey, be, like, be, you know, do still prepare, you know, be smart, be ready just in case.

Don't be paranoid and, like, freaking out every day, but realize, hey- I-i-if, if tomorrow a layoff, like, happens, are you gonna be okay? Because they're just gonna leave you in the dust. They might pay a severance or w- um, some other payment that, uh, like a jurisdiction may require via, like, the law of various countries and things. be some sort of, you know, employment benefit or what have you, but I would rather be prepared than not. And, like, the... It's, it's just one of those ugly truths. And, and, and if you're a person that, that, that... Like, I know, like, I have one friend or a couple friends that [00:41:00] will say, know, you should, you should still be advocating for companies to do better."

I agree with that st- that statement. That is true. But you can be an advocate for companies to do better and be more human while still realizing that right now they don't have to be, and right now that they're not going to do that, and right now the only thing that matters is you kind of yourself. So just, like, n- again, I, I don't wanna say know your enemy, but it is that same sort of, it is that, that same sort of phrase, I guess. Know your enemy. Know your company. Know your capitalism. I don't know, something. But know that you are a number, and sometimes your number's gonna come up

Mikhail: Yep. No matter what you do, no matter how good you are. So I think it's really important, that's a really important s- uh, part of this. I'm not, we're not trying to say that capitalism is the be-all and, like, amazing, but th- that's the reality of where we're at. Like, we're in a capitalistic society, and it's im- really, really important to understand that when you're, when you're cons- [00:42:00] considering your employment.

If you don't, if you, if you keep putting these rose co- co- covered goggles on and being like, "Oh, my company cares about me," and all that, like, believing their HR nonsense that they've been spouting for a long time, then the inevitability is that you're gonna be the one that's going to be surprised by this layoff, and you're gonna not have

You're not gonna be prepared, and you're gonna ... After that, you're, you're gonna be even more pissed than you would've been if you would've just been realistic about the situation. Like, hey, your team's cool. Your manager's, your manager's fine. Uh, the company is, like, the company's doing good work. But the reality is is that you're not safe at, at any given moment.

Like, it's not about being paranoid. It's not about being negative. It's more, it's again about the, the fact that you are able to survive if they were, they decide to lay you off, and you're able to transition to that next job that's gonna have the same thing [00:43:00] happen to you. Like, but ... Oh, not, not gonna have the same.

Potential to have the same thing happen to you

Matt: The, the thing there too is like, there's two minds there, and it's difficult as a human, I'm sure you'd like, you'd

Mikhail: Yes

Matt: Mike, of like, you know, am I... Do I just show up as a cog and I, you know, hate my job and I hate my colleagues and I hate where I am and like everything.

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: what I...

I, I don't think that that's the way to sort of like live or that's like the

Mikhail: Agreed

Matt: I think, what I think, 'cause we're, we're about to talk about some practical advice on how to prepare. What I think we're talking more about is these are real- these are unfortunate realities, and you can have a system place.

Like, so for example, I'll just like touch on it 'cause we'll go into

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: but an emergency fund. It's like, okay, you know, I want my emergency fund to be this amount of money, yada, yada, yada. Okay, well, then you, maybe you have a system where $100 of your paycheck every month or every week or what have you comes out. That's your preparation. You don't need to be like paranoid and like looking around and like angry at work all the time or like treating like your colleagues like ro- like a robot, like, "Oh, this person, I may never see this person again," or whatever. Like you, you can still be human at [00:44:00] work, what you should do is you need to kind of acknowledge the harsh reality behind the scenes and then have a system, like just a blank-- Like that is a blunt system.

$100 a week comes out, goes to an emergency fund. a blunt system. You set it up. You can even automate it and that... Automate without AI too. We-- Bank systems know how

Mikhail: Yeah, yeah。

Matt: money around, right? Uh, you can automate that and that's, if that's your preparation, like you choose whatever preparation you need. If that's your preparation, your preparation's done, man. Now you can just go back to being a human at work knowing that you've done sort of the ugly acknowledgement of the ugliness and you've set up a system to help you succeed. that that's really important, 'cause I do know some people get like super i- you know, depressed and like for, you know, for good reason 'cause like of our society is a little greasy but like, uh, like they get super into like, "I'm a grunt on the bottom.

Everything sucks,"

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: yada. And like [00:45:00] I'm not a psychologist or whatever mental health person, but I don't know if that's gonna help you. Please talk to a doctor about that. But if you're having mental health problems, please talk to a doctor, uh, an appropriate health professional. But like the thing is, but like really though, like we've had people, I've seen people like in town halls for companies come up and be like, "I acknowledge that I'm, I'm..." To the CEO, "I acknowledge that I'm nothing and I'm a little grunt at the bottom, but ple- like please answer this question," and then they like say the question. And it's like great way to frame it, buddy. You know?

Mikhail: It, it, it is a very careful game you have to play.

Matt: Yeah

Mikhail: You, you really have to be careful with that stuff, because if you start to go down that path in your current job, you better bet that you're gonna be on the list of people to lay off first. 'Cause there's, there... Like, yeah, there, there's two things, and I, I don't actually have this in the episode, but maybe it should be in the episode, where there's ways to not be the, at the top of the list.

You know what I mean? [00:46:00] Like, yes, at sometimes it's a random number, and sometimes you can't avoid it, and that's what this episode's really about, is that randomness factor. But really, there are ways to avoid being laid off and make your chance of not being avoided, like, your random number, a little bit better by not being that guy, not be- Like, you know, by completing your work well, by being a team player, by being sociable, by communicating with leadership up and down the board, by not ratting on people, by not creating drama.

Like, there's all of these things that you could do to make yourself less likely to be laid off and a more of a key player at your company that will benefit you and that will lower the chances. And if you go down the path of you're, "I'm a grunt, and, uh, you know, I'm a cog in the machine, and that's all," and you're just going in 9:00 to 5:00...

Like, 9:00 to 5:00 is fine, but, like, if you're going in and not caring about the work that you're doing because of that fact, it is true. But if you can't externalize that and if you can't go back and find some enjoyment from work [00:47:00] and enjoy, like, the current situation you're in, regardless of this looming factor that could happen to anyone at any time, you're gonna have a bad time.

Like, it's going to be... It, you're gonna be higher on the list for being laid off. So, you need to find that balance, and it's way easier said than done. I wanna make that clear. Way easier said than done. You need to do your best at the job, right? You need to make yourself stand out to a certain degree so that you're not, again, on the list and you have a higher chance of being, of not being cut.

Um, yeah, like, the, part, part of this, part of preparing for still being employed is keeping yourself employed. Like, it's an important, it's an important aspect. And the other part, I'll, I'll jump right into preparing you're still, preparing while you're still employed, is knowing the industry. Like, knowing where the industry is at.

So for example, right now, our, the tech industry is not in a good place, right? Like, y- you know, stuff is booming in the AI sector. That's [00:48:00] great. The tech stocks are at an all-time high. But overall, jobs are hard to come by, especially for junior engineers, junior developers. So i- it's a much more competitive landscape than it was, again, b- pre-2022.

Knowing that gives you the advantage of, hey, when you go to actually, like, prepare, you're building an emergency fund. Well, it might... Like, if, if in 2020 and 2022 it took you two months to get a job on average, three months to get a job on average, it might take you six months to get a job on average this, uh, uh, in 2026.

So the emergency fund changes. In 2022, you could probably survive with three months of an emergency fund. In 2026, you need six months, realistically, and knowing that, again, gives you the advantage of you're not panicking. You lose your job, it sucks, you might be depressed, whatever, but you're not panicking.

You're not out on the street. So I, I highly recommend people to stay in tune with the [00:49:00] current economic li- situation. Even if you hate politics, whatever, you don't have to follow politics, but understand what, what it's doing to your soci- to the society. You know, stay in tune with the current tech situation, stay in tune with jobs around you, 'cause a lot of people put their blinders on.

And I also realize that people listening to this podcast aren't really that audience. If you're listening to this podcast, that means you're already trying to expand your horizons and be aware of the tech around you, like being aware of the situation around you, so you're probably not the target audience for this speech.

But if you have a friend, like beside you, that's working at the same job as you that l- puts his bl- puts their blinders on and is just doing their nine to five, you might wanna just give them that, a little bit of information just to prepare them as well. Like, 'cause it's all about, like, helping the people around you as well.

Because if the company can't help you, you can help other people. Um, yeah, like that's one thing, so build your emergency fund. The next thing you, you, you should be doing on a consistent basis, and this is something that pretty much no one does, is continually update your resume. [00:50:00] Like, it's really, it's a, it becomes a real big pain when you're laid off and you're sitting at the blank page or you're sitting on a resume that's three years old or four years old to list all of your accomplishments that you've done.

Matt: Yeah

Mikhail: just because you're already upset at that point, so you already don't care, and, like, it usually takes people quite a while to get all the accomplishments, and you forget. You'll forget shit. Like, you'll forget that, like, you know, in, in year one you increased, you know, lat-- you decreased latency by 10% for a million people.

That's the stuff you're gonna forget because by year three you're doing something way more, way different. Maybe it's less important, more important, it doesn't matter. But, like, you're gonna be doing something way different. So part of updating your resume is also saving evidence of your work and, like, keeping a log almost of the accomplishments.

Matt: Well, I, I

Mikhail: That's something that,

Matt: like,

Mikhail: yeah

Matt: just a daily log of, of assuming your company's private, 'cause most are. Uh, like private as in they don't want their information out there.

Mikhail: Mm-hmm

Matt: details where you're like, "I took six meetings today," or, "I talked to Bill." Like that's an anonymized name.

You don't [00:51:00] know who Bill is and like what department and that. But like if you, if you... 'Cause you can go back to your work log and get a vibe. Like if you're a person that constantly like I don't- I'm not completing enough, this is almost like a productivity thing too. you just like wr- like keep a log just for yourself, and then you can go back at the end of the week and like look at the log and be like, "Oh man, like I am, like I am justifiably tired."

Like I'm tired but I feel like I didn't do anything. Go back to your log. Oh, I'm justifiably tired. I did 14 meetings, this and that. But that helps you update your resume because you might realize something. You might be like, "Oh my God, like I've been leading 10 people." Or like, "Oh my God, I've been helping, uh,

Mikhail: Угу

Matt: multiple teams together and I just kinda did it.

I fell into it. I did it 'cause the job called on it, and I didn't really realize it." So like there's little hidden things that may, uh, come up in an interview or a resume, you might wanna put on your resume or things like that. I'd also wanna do something else weird, Mike, is c- it comes with like the skills, it comes with updating your resume as well, you can have multiple versions of your resume. And one thing I, I think that you should do is you should actually take catalog [00:52:00] of, and, and not necessarily a log, but this is what gave me the idea is, take catalog of your hobbies and are you at a professional level of skill in something? The reason why I say that is because Mike has, has brought up that this industry is not doing too well. this industry's not doing too well and it's already been killing you. Now you've been laid off and it's like twisting the knife. You hate it. You're like, "What the heck?" But your passion is snowmobiling, I don't know, something. There's a million and one things out there, and you're so good at repairing snowmobiles or finding snowmobile trails or like whatever. That's a skill. not... Like I know you may be identified as a developer before, but you still have this skill. You could have a fork, if you will, in your resume, and you could have like, hey, maybe I could be a park ranger or whatever. point is, is that maybe this industry, what if it continues to go down and down and down?

What if it, what if there's a, a real big hardship? Or what if it, what if... Forget the hardship. Forget the negativity. What if it evolves into [00:53:00] something that you don't want?

Mikhail: I mean, that's very relevant right now

Matt: that's very, very relevant for many, many people. And here's the thing is I always hear people say, you know, "Hey, you shouldn't make your hobbies into professions."

Sometimes that's true, but some- like what if you're just amazing at doing something in the snowmobile scene? What if you're amazing at like, you know, slinging deals at like TCG shows, trading card game shows? What if you're amazing at that stuff? If you're amazing at that stuff, I mean, you know, take a look at it and think, "Okay, maybe I could make a living doing this." And, and, and those are, those are skills. You could fork your resume even in like a, like you have your one professional one, "Hey, I'm a developer and these are all my things." You can have like a drafty one where you kind of like jot stuff down roughly and then, you know, slowly kind of chip away at it and be like, "Oh my God, like I really could do this other thing

Mikhail: Uh, I'll be honest, when I was doing some hiring, uh, I actually liked forked resumes. Like, I liked it when they showed some interesting other career that they had before they switched to development. They don't, you don't have to show all... [00:54:00] Like, I, I wouldn't expect them to show everything about that other career, but I kind of liked it.

Like, if someone worked construction and then became a developer, I kind of want to know that because it gives them a different perspective, and it gives them a different work ethic.

Matt: it's on the

Mikhail: Yeah, yeah, I, I wouldn't mind it, like at least something. Like, it c- doesn't have to be in the main work section. It can be s- in the hobbies or something like, like, it c- it can be like one job that they list that's separate from board development, something, something like that.

I kind of liked it. It wasn't like a hard, like thing for me, but I, I noticed those resumes a little bit more sometimes,

Matt: Yeah,

Mikhail: as the, you know, the fork was interesting. Um, so it's not, it's nothing to be like super asha- Like, if you're gonna be applying for other jobs and you have no other skills in those jobs is what I'm trying to say, or no other re- e- experience, showing that you've kept a job of a different type is okay to show.

Like, if you have 10 developer jobs to show, then you're gonna show only the developer jobs to the developer jobs. But if you only have developer jobs and you're trying to become an electrician, [00:55:00] you're gonna have to show your developer jobs 'cause people are gonna ask,

Matt: Yeah,

Mikhail: Like, "Have you ever been an ele- electrician before?"

So like, it's, it's kind of okay to have some mix as long as it benefits you in that way, like to show that you c- you have kept those jobs, and then you just change some of the skills, like some of the accomplishments to be more related to the job that you're trying to apply for. Like, uh, you know, for an electrician, it's probably really important to be detail-oriented, so you'd, you'd change some detail-oriented skill.

Like, something that shows that you're detail-oriented or that you could, you passed some sort of exam. I don't know.

Matt: Well, what's interesting that you, when you mentioned the fork is like when I was saying forked, I meant literally two separate

Mikhail: Yeah, two separate resonances. Yeah, I get it. Yeah.

Matt: park ranger

Mikhail: Mm-hmm

Matt: and one I'm handing... So like this one would be mostly snowmobile repair or whatever, and then this one would be mostly like developer.

But it's interest- Like that's a very interesting point that you make, Mike, is like some people are gonna wanna know the journey of it. 'Cause you might be like, "Oh, you were a foreman, you know, at a job site. Maybe you got injured to the point where you can't stand 12 [00:56:00] hours a day, so now you're a developer."

It's like, oh, okay, interesting. You're still gonna bring some of those, uh, human leadership skills. Obviously, you were a foreman or foreperson or whatever they call them now. It's like you can now bring some of those skills, that supervisory skill over to being a developer. So maybe you could be a tech lead and not just a developer

Mikhail: It's true. Yeah, exactly. That's what I mean. Like, it, it, it... As long as it somehow is relevant, like you can make it somewhat relevant.

Matt: Yeah

Mikhail: I wouldn't put, I wouldn't put that I was a dishwasher on my resume. That, that's not super relevant, unless it was the only experience I had. Um, but, like, the chances of getting a job are pretty low at that point.

Anyway, totally agree with that. Like, you-- I think it's really important to look at your skills around you and see what else you could do because especially right now, the industry is different, and if you have a path to a different job that you would like more, it's not a bad time to take it if you get laid off.

Like, i-i-if it's something that fits that, that, that thing because [00:57:00] we know that the development industry has changed, and it probably will never go back to what it was before. Some people like it, and I, I've learned to enjoy parts of it, to be fair. I've lear- I've gotten some enjoyment from figuring out workflows and tinkering with AI, different LLMs, and figuring out what LLM does what best and, you know, still making robust software with these, with these, like, indeterministic packages and stuff like that.

It's st- I've learned to enjoy that, but there's plenty of things that I don't like right now, so, like, I'm, I'm definitely on the fence still. Um, but yeah, like, it, it's, it's important to do that. It's, it's very important to do that.

Matt: Well, especially like we, we, we've seen it, uh, with like people going through like second career

Mikhail: Mm-hmm

Matt: where like you, you, you have a, a downturn in, in industry. Again, like my, a lot of my family's like tr- skilled trades. You see a, a downturn in industry, and some of the people that are laid off are 50 or 60 years old, not ready to retire financially or what have you, so that it becomes, "Oh, okay, now I need to go [00:58:00] get another job." But the industry for my particular type of welding or my particular type of carpentry or whatever is in the absolute bottom of the barrel. I'm 50 or 60, I can't wait seven to 10 years for it to turn around. I could go work some, some part-time job somewhere or some just sort of like not a career job, sort of like a McDonald's or something, right?

I could go work, do that, but that's gonna be a consistent... That's gonna be a big hit to my lifestyle. So, you know, let- let's, let's gather what skills I have, and let's, like, I'm a-- I'm more than just the carpenter that I was, that I, when I was laid off or whatever, right? So, like, let's take a look at what's available in my own portfolio of skill and, like, try to that to a second career.

Like, that was a huge thing, um, for my family. There was, like, a big layoff thing happening here. I'm not gonna, you know, get, go into all the details. But the thing that happened was is, like, a lot of people were going into second career, and so sometimes it'd be like, "Oh, this welder could be a [00:59:00] construction Oh, this, this person that was, you know, working in production, they worked at heights, and they worked in, in great heat. They could go work here. Uh, this person is, uh, was, like, working in the parts department at, like, a plant that was, like, you know, cataloging huge, you know, parts for this and that, this and that. They could go into a job that requires a lot of bookkeeping and a lot of organization skills, even if it isn't inside of the industry, or even inside industry at all. Could be a more white-collar job because this person has organization skills." And so, like, like, second career is, like, a huge, huge thing.

And, like, when I say second career, it, it, it's like, "Hey, I was a welder, now I'm this. Like, I'm now something else. I'm no longer, like, in the welding, in the welding side of things." And I think that that's a big, a big thing due to layoffs, but it's also right now a big thing because the industry you went into may not be recognizable, you know, in, i- inside of five years. And so you may hate it. You might be like, "I'm out of here." And, and we've, [01:00:00] and we've had that web news, like I'll mention that in... I'll actually put that in the show notes. We've had that web news where I, I, I do apologize, I forget the, I forget the fella's name, but the, the, the one guy was saying like, "I'm done."

Like, uh, you know, was using AI, yada, yada, and he has a bunch of moral reasons and things, and I'll let the episode speak for itself. But we have a web news episode where he's just like, "I'm, I'm done, man. Like, I don't wanna do this anymore." And there's, you know, good reasons for it, so.

Mikhail: Yeah, he's not gonna be the only one. I can guarantee you there's gonna be quite a few people that are in that same boat, and that's okay. Um A couple other things I want to mention to prepare, like prepare while you're still employed. I'll kind of combine these two sections, prepare while you're still employed and what to do when you think layoffs are imminent.

Um, but n- kind of like a really important one, in my opinion, is continually keeping your LinkedIn, GitHub, and portfolio current.

Matt: Agreed

Mikhail: this is something that is hard to do when you're in the thick of it, but the problem is that if you don't do it and then all of a sudden you flip to that and just go in and do like a big spurt of it, for a [01:01:00] company, they might see that as you actually looking for a job, while if you continually are doing it and it's just part of your routine, it's nothing's gonna be thrown off.

Now, like the chances of a company noticing it are probably still pro- probably pretty low. If you're a startup, higher chance. If you're in a big tech company, no one's gonna care. But in general, just keeping that up to date, not having to have that upfront time after you get laid off to invest in updating all of those things is a good idea 'cause again, your, your...

Everything stays current. Everything looks like you've been continually updating and working on it. You get the right information in there at the right time. Like you don't forget things. Same, similar to the save the evidence. You could probably get away... Like as long as you keep a log of your work, maybe you can get around not doing this, to be fair.

But you have to keep that log really, really well done, right? So like I, I... Out of all of these things that I would say, like obviously build an emergency fund is important, but the second most important would be, or maybe the third most important, I, I... There's another one that I want to talk about. But like w- [01:02:00] top three would be build an emergency fund, save evidence of your work, and that's the log thing that Matt mentioned, and the third one is going to be build your network.

So talk to people. Talk to your coworkers more because you don't know what's gonna happen. They might go to a different company. They might be able to bring you there. Talk to outside of your, of your work, right? Go to meetups. Do, you know, try to join a community of developer, whatever, like whatever you do.

Go, you know, join our Discord server, HTML All the Things. Uh, whatever you want to do, try, try to, try to find like-minded people that are in your industry and keep that, the relationships up. Continually invest in those relationships. I want to make that very clear. It's not like, uh, do a bunch of things and then leave.

Constantly reach out, ask them how they're doing, help them. The best way to keep a relationship is by offering help, by doing things for other people, right? Like trying to actually be a human and do the right thing. Like, it's not about a [01:03:00] reciprocal relationship. It's about, "Hey, how can I help you? And then if in the future you can help me somehow, great.

If you can't, okay, that's fine." It's not like everyone's gonna be able to help you. But having like, building actual relationships, building an actual network is going to be huge if you get laid off. So if you spend time in those three, again, emergency fund, evidence of work, network, you're going to be well prepared for when layoffs start to get imminent.

And when layoffs are imminent Really it's just, you know, quadrupling down on those three things. Save everything. Really save everything. Like, go through everything that you have that you can put on your local computer, like your personal computer, not your work laptop. Not private files. Don't break your company's NDAs.

Don't make your company's policies. But whatever you can take off there, take off there, right? Like, if you think a layoff is imminent, get as much records of your work as you possibly can that's legal. Okay? Then it's the same thing. Build your emergency fund even [01:04:00] more. What's the... Like, stop spending. Dec- dec- decrease your spending right away.

Try to get as much money in your emergency fund as you can in whatever time they give you, right? Whatever time your gut says they'll give you. 'Cause some- like, sometimes layoffs are announced in advance. This happened at Meta recently, which is wild to me. Um, so, like, they'll be like, "We're laying off 5,000 people in, in three months."

I don't know. I think that was a leak, but, like, they didn't uncon- they did not, like, deny it, so therefore it was obvious they were gonna do it. Uh, so that's brutal for the company and for the morale, but it happens, and then at that point you at least have those three months to prepare. It's kind of like a blessing in a certain way, obviously

Matt: brutal, brutal for morale, and who knows if it was a leak or whatever, but like brutal for morale, but a tool for you

Mikhail: Absolutely. If you can not go down the spiral of depression or panic quit, like I s- I, I heard some people panic quit in that [01:05:00] situation, which is wild because you're gonna get... You're probably gonna get severance if it's a layoff, right? You're not gonna be fired for cause, so there's probably gonna be severance.

Matt: also might

Mikhail: out...

Matt: on the ticket

Mikhail: Absolutely, and that's the other thing is like don't panic quit, and don't start to w- go down a spiral. Try to still stand out. Try to still be that p-positive, that positive, uh, voice in the room because you don't know what's final and what's not. They do. Management does. You don't. Every company's different.

There, there could be situations where they could take you off the list. There could be situations where they could put you on the list. If you're gonna go into work every day and be negative, you better bet that you're gonna take someone off that's positive and put you on the list. So I know it's hard, and I know I'm being harsh right now, and a lot of this episode is real truths.

Like, uh, I'm trying to be very direct, and it's not easy. Like everything, everything that I'm saying is easier said than done, but it's important. You can at least try to do this and differentiate yourself from the people that aren't doing it. [01:06:00] Obviously, you could start taking a look at roles around you.

Like, you could start immediately applying for roles even, right? Like, you can do whatever you can to try to benefit from that advance notice. You don't have to take the roles. Like, if, if it's, if it's like not a guaranteed layoff, applying for roles doesn't mean taking them, but you can start to look around.

You can start to, again, probe your network. That's the other thing is like now, now you really have to get to your network. You really have to start poking them and being like, "Hey, anything out there?" Like, you don't have to be very obvious and blunt about it. Don't post, don't post on social media that you're looking for a job when you already have a job.

Don't do that. Some people do. That's crazy. But, you know, privately start poking your network, seeing what's out there, what they can offer. So, you know, t- looking at what legal, um, what legal opportunities you have. I don't re- I've never really done this because I've always been a contractor. I have no legal obligations.

Like, they could fire me at any point, no severance, nothing. Um, you know, [01:07:00] that's fine. But a lot of people, if you're employed full-time, look at your state laws, get, maybe get acquainted with a, an employment lawyer before it's happening so that you're already ready to go. Um, don't take the first deal that they give you.

Say that you're gonna read it first, et cetera, et cetera. Like, that stuff has, has been said to death, but it's, it's important to re-reiterate. Um, yeah, to check, check what the benefits mean. Like, if you get laid off, what does that mean? Do they, do they end, or is it something that they carry over for a couple months where you can pay into the plan?

I think there's something in the US where you can kind of carry on benefits sometimes for several months as long as you pay in. Plenty of things like that to, to look at, but again, the most important three are build your emergency fund, save your work, save your evidence of work, and build your network

Matt: And I think there's like a personal spin to be mentioned here too is like, you know, you, you know you, you know your financial situation's obviously a big one, your

Mikhail: Угу

Matt: your own mental health and everything else. I mean, there's some people out there that [01:08:00] have a great little side hustle going on.

Maybe you double down on the side hustle and you know that if you put more time into the side hustle that it's gonna make more money, right? So maybe you do that. Uh, maybe you, you know, double down on, on some other income strategies. You know, if you have like an amazing investment plan or something like that, you know, maybe you do that.

Like you, you know, assess your own risks, you assess your own budgets, you assess your own tools and what you actually want to do versus what you have to do know, okay, like the, the, you know, this is what's, this is what I'm gonna do. And, and, and sometimes it's big. Sometimes it's, it's, it's moving. I mean, you may have moved to some place that's very expensive to get a very good job and if you do get laid off or you're thinking a lay off is imminent, I'm not saying to like panic, quit and move. What I mean is, is maybe take a look at, okay, maybe I should like move to an apartment here 'cause it's cheaper and then I could, you know, figure something out there or whatever. And again, like these are big life [01:09:00] decisions and, and the only you know you, but having an emergency fund like Mike is saying and, you know, having that six months of money or having that three months of money or having that year of money which, you know, e- even better, you know, fantastic.

And then having your resume and everything up to date already you to be like, "Okay, like I'm not just, I'm not in a panic looking around what's my next move? What's my next move?" You already know, "All right. I got my resume set up. Let's start applying. I'm living off my emergency fund right now. I'm potentially looking at my options like we u- like Mike said for lawyers if that's something that your jurisdiction allows or, or has benefits for and things." you know, put your own twist on your own preparation. But I think it's one of these things where do it so that you're not taken completely off guard and completely aback even if you're caught off guard by the layoff itself. "Oh, I've been caught off guard by the layoff itself, but I have 12 months of money. Okay, like it really sucks [01:10:00] but like at least I'm not now bankrupt," right? Like, like tr- like you know you again. Plan this for yourself. If you're gonna be a wreck you're worried about money all the time, have a really good emergency fund. Have a year, have two years emergency fund. y- you know you best.

Figure, figure out the best plan for you and just to make sure that you're okay I think at the end of the day

Mikhail: Agreed

Matt: But I think that's it. That's the episode. How to prepare for a tech layoff, an unfortunate reality in the tech world and many other industries as well, and especially prevalent in today's tech world it seems, which is very unfortunate. But, uh, if you, if you, uh, like this episode, uh, please let us know.

Please let us know if we, you know, missed anything. Is there anything else that we should be doing, or is there anything unique that you're doing in your unique case where you're thinking, "Okay, you know, uh, like I have this side hustle," or, "I have this," or, "I have this income stream," or, "I have that income stream," or, "I'm [01:11:00] gonna, you know, move here," or, "I'm gonna try to become a seasonal worker here," or, "This is my backup job," or whatever. Everyone's unique, so let us know what your plan is or what your plan would be. And, uh, if you w- liked this episode, remember we're on Patreon. If you want to support episodes like this, that's patreon.com/htmlallthethings. And many thanks to our $3 tier patrons, Tim from The Web Hacker on Jason from Geek Life Radio via geekliferadio.com, Garrett Segall, Level Up Financial Planning via www.levelupfinancialplanning.com, Magnus from Yesweb via yesweb.se, Syntaxify from the HTML All the Things Distr- Discord server, and Stacy Musseler from the website swoonworthydesigns.com. And remember that we have a contributing author, and he is Michael LaRocca. Michael is the author of Self-Taught: The X Generation Blog at selftaughttxg.com. And if you wanna learn how to code and you wanna take courses to do so, you can get up to 20% off a Scrimba Pro plan using our link in the RSS description as well as in the show notes on htmlallthethings.com, where you will also find the details on how the link works. Feel free to [01:12:00] leave a comment or review in the platform you're listening to this on, and we are signing off