Joining promo sessions
These are very much incomplete thoughts on managing people out, aka firing people. I’ve never fired anyone – I never had to but I’ve noticed some kind of paradox among engineers:
- Companies firing poor performers are bad – they create poor work life balance for the employees
- Companies not firing poor performers are bad – these bad performers have a negative impact on the company and people complain about them
I think our industry in regards to layoffs has changed since the massive layoffs. For example Google is following Meta/Amazon’s path to fire poor performers on a regular basis. Fun fact is I’ve heard a Google director who since switched companies asking other directors how to fire people because they never had to do so during their +15 years tenure at Google.
I briefly wrote in the past about how working in hot companies or becoming a senior engineer means you sign up for more responsibilities and eventually more work/stress. Joining a hot company means that not only is the bar to get in is high, but the bar to stay is equally high – so you should be aware of what you are signing up for.
Interestingly enough, I believe that poor performers eventually leave. You cannot nicely manage people out and if companies don’t take drastic action on a regular basis, my theory is that they have to do massive layoffs every now and then. This is why Google did multiple rounds of layoffs in my opinion (that continued well after the initial large one).
Thoughts on firing people? A few more random unstructured thoughts:
- I think firing people should be based on some long time window – people have ups and downs and we shouldn’t expect people to always perform at their peak condition (life happens…)
- Losing your job shouldn’t be an issue for your well-being – there should be enough safety to make sure you can still live well (e.g. health insurance should continue even if you lose your job, you shouldn’t lose your home if you are a bit late on payments etc.)
- It’s fine to fire people (assuming the above) – there shouldn’t be stigma from being fired, people might not be a good fit regardless of their ability to perform well