Ask HN: I lost my job
About a week ago I was laid off. In 15+ years I am working as developer, I was never considered for a layoff. I am soul searching for a week now, and finally I got over my anger, disappointment and anxiety and ready to move on.
I believe it was nothing to do with my performance of skills as a developer. I believe I was expected to perform as a leader on top of solving problems, writing applications and my lack of leadership skills made me not worth my paycheck. In retrospect, higher ups did mention in passing about an year ago about how I need to speak up in meetings etc.
I think I don't know how to be a leader at a workplace.
So I come here being humbled. If you are a leader/team leader/c-suite people/managers please enlighten me. Or point me towards videos, books, ted talks, internet articles. I want to learn and be a better person and also don't want to repeat the mistakes in a new job.
135 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 95.1 ms ] threadIt's ok to feel down for some time, but it's important to understand the broad picture and not take this personally - regardless of what you were told.
Now, regarding leadership resources, I would recommend to start with the following (in this order):
Moneyball (movie), books: The Goal, The Phoenix Project, The Mythical Man-Month, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, The Culture Code and in-between those - various Simon Sinek videos.
If you read this far, you should be able to continue finding materials on your own from here ;)
Best of luck!
I was laid off at the end of February. To make a long story short, the product wasn't selling well and the company had to cut costs.
In my case, my manager gave me a heads up months in advance. If you're still in touch with your manager or people you worked with, try to find out the real story.
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Think about some of the excellent experienced people you learned from early in your career. You now need to be just like them.
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Career-wise, what kind of "leadership" is expected from someone with 15+ years experience? A lead does the most important designs, sets the technical direction, mentors other developers, takes part in bug triages, works on the most difficult parts of a product, and interviews candidates. Sometimes the title of "architect" is used.
You can also be a manager, or a consultant who can get in and get things done.
But, someone with 15+ years of experience isn't just a coder getting a bigger paycheck than someone with 3 years of experience. Your career lessons need to rub off on the younger developers. Otherwise, your large paycheck just turns into a giant target compared to your cheaper peers.
Having said that, you do need to realize that the "glass ceiling" on developer positions tends to be lower than on management (aka. "leadership") positions. There often is lip service saying the "technical ladder" is parallel and equal to the "management ladder", but it isn't in my experience. Fact of life.
Consequently, if you prefer solving technical problems rather than people problems, you will be trading off money for happiness.[1] In my book, that is a trade-off I'm happy to make. In fact, I've deliberately chosen to stay in the technical realm rather than "leadership" realm for 35 years now. Especially early on in my carrier, my managers pushed me towards "leadership" roles and I let them know I was not interested. While I have and will take on a leadership role out of necessity due to circumstances in a project, I've always made a point of reverting to the technical work when the crisis is over.
I have less money but more happiness. That doesn't work for everyone, but it works for me. Sounds like it would work for you.
[1] There are people that enjoy being in a leadership position. "Rands in Repose" https://randsinrepose.com/archives/managing-nerds/ is a good example of that. I'm happy for him and I'm happy for my managers who enjoy being in a leadership position because that means I can focus and satiate my inner nerd.
--Over a period of many years I found out that you can't please everyone and you can't be everybody's friend. So don't be afraid to speak up. Get informed, make a decision and speak up. You may be right or you may be wrong but follow thru and lead by example.
Think about this and act on it.
> In retrospect, higher ups did mention in passing about an year ago about how I need to speak up in meetings etc.
That's a critical point. If you have 15 years experience, even if you don't have a "leadership" title, you are expected to demonstrate some leadership in meetings.
First: In the meeting, you should be able to discuss tradeoffs, explain why certain things are easier, safer, or more dangerous. You should be able to give context and have an opinion. Your opinions need to be fair and unbiased, or you should be able to point out that you're biased towards a particular approach. You're in the meeting for your experience, both career experience, and (if you've been in the job for awhile,) experience with the product(s).
Second, and this is more critical, but harder to do: You need to be able to stop bad meetings. In some cases, this is a matter of just telling someone that their 20 person invite list is too long. In other cases, you need to interrupt people and force them to make their point or move on; or you need to interrupt a meeting to politely excuse half of the people in the room who don't need to be there.
Yes, it's technically management's job to stop bad meetings, but it's also your job too. Stopping bad meetings is everybody's job, but it falls on the most experienced people on a team to lead by setting an example.
But I've found that at times it's better to work within the system a little bit like. IMing my boss if we're in the meeting to check with him first.
This is a really bad advice, especially in this context. Don't annoy or confront your coworkers. Tell your manager if you feel like stopping some meetings. It's strictly their job, and they will be happy to step in and do that. Besides, any meeting of 20 people should have a manager present.
In my experience, the way to handle this is usually a quick Slack conversation with the meeting organizer starting with "hey, I saw you invited all of team X to the meeting - do they all need to be there or just Y". The response is almost always "I don't know anyone on that team so I just invited them all", and by initiating the conversation you are offering to help.
Maybe in a perfect world, but this is heavily context-dependent. Ignore office culture/politics at your own risk.
There will be a discussion that starts meandering, going down rabbit holes, and somehow he'll find the perfect question to ask, which is always a very simple one, to set everyone back on target. Sometimes I don't think people even realize this is happening.
The reason it's hard to explain is because it comes across as an innate character trait, a skill that's just core to his personality, which is why it's so hard to emulate.
Stopping a meeting seems like a massive waste of resources, especially when you've already gathered the folks that can fix it.
Stopping a meeting in the middle of the planned duration is a bit dramatic, but if it’s clear after 15 minutes the group collectively doesn’t have the information needed to make a decision, its worth stopping.
I’m currently spending a quarter of my day or more in status meetings of various types. I will absolutely tell people I’m dropping (which is a the “lite” version of stopping a meeting) if they stop providing value.
> when you've already gathered the folks that can fix it.
Far too many people gather the wrong people, and stopping to excuse people is critical.
I know that leadership can be taught, but I don't think it can be taught while you're not already in a leadership position, or at least a simulation of it, i.e., hands-on classes. Olivia Fox Cabane has a some YouTube videos on Charisma that I think would be good to watch. She's a damn good communicator.
Take responsibility for the actions of the people you lead, do the things you want them to do. Your actions will speak far louder than the words you say: lead by example and all that.
Some people can be good leaders and speak up in meetings where they are talking about an area they are comfortable in. For example, a senior or lead engineer does an excellent job speaking up and leading in an engineering meeting - but in a room with a bunch of business people they don't really have anything to add so they don't say anything.
I only ask this because it's important to remember context. Sometimes people are in expected to be leaders in a situation that does not fit them. In other situations they can do well. Just something to keep in mind.
As for the layoffs...don't take it personally. If you were a good developer and your management was too short-sighted to realize you might fit better in a different role, that's not your fault.
Sadly, your physical presence makes a difference in how others start perceiving you and will probably dictate what approach you take to establish yourself. A lot of self-help leadership books seem to be written by guys who are at or over 6ft tall.
It doesn't mean you cannot be perceived as good leader without a leading man presence, but you do have to work at it differently. Advice for a classically dashing 6'2" guys often doesn't work for 5'4" women. You need to impress the people making that decisions and they often have the look. It sucks, but we cannot see other people's souls. Sorry for your loss, it sucks and is a bummer but don't let it break you, its just their opinion and probably isn't close to the truth.
Again though, like you said, it's not intrinsic. No one would argue that Churchill was not an excellent leader, even if they did disagree with his politics or his methods.
A person will get real damn frustrated if all the advice they get works for one segment of the population and doesn't work for them. That can cause all kinds of self doubt and depression. You need to be able to honestly assess how other people perceive you and work on strategy, skills, and maybe some changes in physical activity to have a good outcome. I just hate to see people get depressed when they shouldn't.
Napoleon Bonaparte is short, but he was not only a leader, he was a conqueror. Tyrion Lannister, even though fictional, is another example, learn the actor's performance, how he use his face and voice.
Learn psychology and interpersonal interaction, think of it as problem solving using human for human problems instead of your usual tool of choosing.
Learn how to command with charisma. Use visual, sound, and tactile as optimum as you can. For those who see persuasion and manipulation as immoral, get rid of it. As long as your intention are good, you'll use those weapons carefully.
Just be yourself. If other people think you’re too [whatever] for someone who looks like you then fuck them. By catering to the stereotypes we only perpetuate the stereotypes.
Leaders come in all shapes, sizes, and personalities.
People relationships are difficult. Then there is the "game" to play as part being part of a company (once you are at the manager/director/vp level, you have to understand that you represent the company to your peers. I have something very interesting happen to me, one week I was a developer, peer of my colleagues, we joked a lot and had a lot of fun interactions at work. Next week I become "director of Engineering", become their boss, and the interaction changed completely (it was not something I did, it literally changed from one day to another).
Now, on the current state of things, I would not search a lot to what the company told you, regarding why they let you go. At a previous startup I was, at some point we had to make cuts, and all the VPs and C levels sat down in a meeting looking at each of our teams, and then each team had to decide to cut 2 people. It was ruthless, and every manager had to explain to the person why they were let go...
The best thing would be, if you had a more friendly relation with your manager, that now, after the fact, you can have a informal call with him and ask him, what do you think you could have done better in general to avoid being affected by the layoffs in your company.
Take a breath, everyone is getting laid off. Don't blame yourself, that's a road to hell you don't want to go down right now.
It's clear I was getting paid too much.
It isn't a bad time to reflect and improve yourself but I wouldn't take it personally.
From your OP, I'd say...
- grow a much thicker skin
- form and share your opinion more often
- actively seek out other leaders at your level or above to see how you can improve _something_ (this is often just watercooler/gossip for leaders/managers but it is part of the game)
- take a more active part in guiding the team processes
If you really just feel comfortable as a developer then just guide the development process - help create/iterate on/enforce style guides and other development pieces. You can do this with very little people leadership skills but still have a visible impact on an organization.
If they are unable to evaluate your actual work, the only way they can evaluate you is based on your verbal contributions during a meeting.
As they are clearly unable to coach you, they are probably relying on you to coach the younger workers.
Just realize that each manager is looking for a different set of things. Some managers would be perfectly happy with you quietly writing applications well.
Nobody knows how to be a manager, and while some with encouragement can learn, some people either don't have the inclination or correct temperament.
I personally would never push someone into management or push the person out if that person was happiest as a individual contributor.
The world needs more makers, not more managers.
All the best!
It makes me wonder if the OP got their lines crossed about the lack of leadership thing being a significant part of the reason they got fired and/or there's a significant part of the story not being told here, like maybe the company is being pummeled by the effects of the pandemic and had to trim some of their more expensive employees (of which someone with 15 years of experience is likely to be) or something.
And let's be honest, lots of people with 15 years experience really have 1 year of experience 15 times. It's really hard to guess at the situation based on no evidence, but I can easily see both sides here.
Before you start down this road, I'd ask yourself if you want to be a manager. You can lead, based on your experience, but that doesn't mean you need to have people reporting directly to you. I was a manager in an IT group, and while everyone liked me (I'm a likable guy!) I wasn't particularly good at the managing part. It made me miserable to not be good at my job and I'm much happier consulting/contracting now.
Some people take offense when others seem to be "encroaching" on their territory.
When looking at a problem and a room of people trying to address that problem draw the line between the ROOM and the PROBLEM. A lot of times the way people speak about or address things is by first drawing a line between the people in the room, and then draw another line between the room and the problem.
Leader != "I need to speak up in meetings"
The problem here might be more general, not communicating enough. You might be technically competent but there's a problem when the level of communication isn't high enough. Countless problems (an unnecessary development) can be avoided through high bandwidth communication. Even when it might be unjustified, if people feel like people aren't communicating, then they wonder if perhaps problems are getting created that could be avoided simply because that person isn't speaking up. It leads to frustration. This may not be applicable to your situation, but I thought I'd throw that out there
Reality testing is critical. Ask them out to lunch or coffee and frame it as seeking their thoughts as a means to improvement, not bitterness about the divorce.
We all have some work to achieve that kind of stature, but from your question I also sense the people you reported to were not a good fit for what I perceive to be your likely leadership style. Don't take it personally, they dont have all the answers.
Secondly, I once asked your question and a friend answered that most managers land their position by necessity for the company. They were here when the team grew. Or created their company, so they had to manage it. Most managers just deal with what is happening. Most people don’t know what they are doing, or why they have been selected. Sometimes there is no rationale. So don’t sweat it too much, because being relaxed and easy to manage plays a good part in career success.
For me it was much easier to be a manager than be an employee, because as an employee you are expected to compete and establish your presence (such as speaking up in meetings); As a manager you have entirely different incentives, it was way more intuitive for me.
As a developer gets older and has more experience they are definitely expected to show leadership skills. While this can look different for everybody, usually it looks like some combination of:
1. Ability to mentor others 2. Ability to be the "expert" on the team. A go to developer for design and architecture advice 3. Ability to be the liaison with other development teams, product management, or sometimes upper management
Unfortunately it is rare that you can be an experienced develop er and not be expected to show leadership in these areas, along with your development work.
Most managers are not leaders. At minimum, they approve expense reports and check the boxes. Better ones know how to operate in an organization and detect & solve operational problems.
Leaders take a position and make their case and defend it effectively. They grow and support the people around them. And they try to improve themselves along the way by learning from the people above, below, and parallel to them. They have the trust of people around them because they earned it and reflect it.
You can be none of the above, one of the above, or - and this is special - both of the above.
And of course, none of that is static. People can improve and grow at any time.
developer longest on project by a significant factor is likely to be the leader by default.
developer likely to be on project longer than more experienced developers may be deferred to as leader (at least I often do if I am consulting for a short period and a less experienced guy from the company is on the project for the next year I defer to how he wants to do things)
Often leadership is just going to the most experienced because of course they know how to make their case and defend it.
You're arguing 2 very different concepts with the GP, he made the case (quite elegantly) that a leader is a set of behaviors and you're ignoring all of that and stating "nope, it's a job title".
I'd recommend you re-read their comment.
As regards rereading comments I suggest you reread mine with the consideration that the phrases "leader by default" or "deferred to as leader" would indicate someone who is not leader by title, yet has also not necessarily demonstrated a lot of leadership qualities to get the position (as indicated by the rest of the comment).
They are leaders not by title or nature, but leaders by necessity and pragmatism.
Maybe leader by "position" or "circumstance" is a better term as it covers the situations like "most experienced in a team" even if that experience is only a few months more than the person they're helping and even if they don't have the title to match.
I still agree with the parent commenter that distinguished between _true_ leaders and those who've been placed or defaulted into the role.
It doesn’t mean you have to stop coding, or become a people manager, but you do need to start spending a decent amount of time helping the team improve and make good decisions. This does mean less coding, but there can still be a solid amount of coding time.
Like, OP, it sucks that you lost your job, especially during this crazy COVID time. But if you can learn to develop your leadership skills, it’ll be a big help to your career long term. I’d say the biggest thing is to try to keep the needs of the business in mind, and to realize that very often you can make a bigger impact by guiding/mentoring others than you can by just doing it yourself.
I don't know you enough to tell you what you need to do, but if you have 15 years of experience: you probably have useful things to share with the less experienced. Most people want to learn, they want mentors, so if that isn't happening maybe a tiny bit of reflection on how to be more welcoming. But man, it's a layoff, don't kick yourself over it.