i also hate the idea that work is a family. My previous boss used to say this. I really hated ir

Data scientist here. Was working at a large midwestern distributor previously he is exactly right. We were working on replacing the workers. The problem is so complex it transcends just the economic aspect etc. and turns sociocultural. The way managerial capitalism indoctrinated business philosophy over decades and kind of led to a superiority complex of the executive class. I don’t think anyone can stop the train that’s about to hit us, probably better to just stay away and work remotely for a while.

Great video!

Great context!

I'm the king bitches. Great video. I never win at anything, finally I'm number one. May the streak go on. To the moon baby!

In smaller companies generally you get to know why something is happening and who is responsible for the same while on the other side the large organisations have to save their face and they can never reveal the true reasoning behind any decision they are are taking. Yes they are also at fault most of the times since they are NOT GOD but humans, but they cant accept it.

golden handcuffs are real. he sounds so corporate, lacking interest and enthusiasm. wild

So the conclusion is if someone gets fired even in a mass firing, it's most likely he was incompetent AND didn't have the political connections to save his job.

What about the direction chosen by the leadership to go there? If you had a goal to grow user base by 30%, created a whole product to make it happen. However you got 15%, whose fault is it? You as a leader fucked up.

❤

Quick question. Did Amazon want you to spend more time with your family? 😜

Thanks, Ethan and Rahul. Insightful. 1. Team and org gets bigger [Very hard in the current scenario] 2. Someone leaves above you - fill the hole - [Less hope:)] 3. Reorgs, downsizing - You get handed a piece [Less hope:)] 4. Have an excellent idea - Get new funding for the HC [Difficult but can be pursued] 5. Be a top performer, ask manager for the opportunity when time comes [Squeaky wheel gets the grease]. Work with A, B, C and praise A, B, C for their efforts. You get recognized as you are the common element.

“The right business outcome” never means the long term benefit of the employee or even the company. It, increasingly, means the quarterly earnings result. They treat people like consumables. Company loyalty is expected to flow only one way, fanatically towards the company. But what do we know? All these masters of the universe who hold the capital and power to destroy your life on a whim without even knowing your name, who you cannot elect, or even criticize surely know better. They must, because we have made them gods of our society.

:38 - Why re-orgs happen - Leaders have a goal they aren't hitting and somehow the organization isn't meeting them - when the reorg happens you might not get it, but that is the root cause. 1:17 - Technical folks often look at "did the system work" the leader is held to "is the thing making money or getting users" Its cynical to think they just shuffled seats on the deck, there's a problem they are trying to solve. 2:30 - When re-orgs happen and someone is shuffled to a lower role or out of the company, there's a reason for that, and corporations will be sued if they tell the truth, so given our legal system - your company can not say the actual truth because they are avoiding lawsuits. 4:30 - My manager is the same but my skip is different, what do I do? 5:10 - When you perform, you can have your manager get you a meeting with the skip. The way to get that meeting is to say "I want to make sure my work meets your goals" can you lay out your vision. 6:00 - Too many people are working on things that don't move the needle for the company, you keep working on the wrong thing so when your skip finds out they are like...I wish I knew that you were working on that I would have killed that project. Lesson, don't work on projects your skip would have killed, the way to do that is find out what they are working on.

Amazon is the most toxic company.

This guy is dancing around the questions. IC orTechnical people are not so dumb that they think because their code compiles that there is no reason for re-org. Obviously the re-orgs happen due to some organizational org. The problem is that the IC people (who are not accountable for those goals) are the ones who suffer for the poorly thought out actions of those creating the strategy. Moreover...if those higher ups are "accountable" for those goals...they should be the ones being fired for not meeting those goals. Imagine thinking that you should put your children in a blender to die because you decided to drive your car too fast over a pothole which resulted in a flat tire. This is literally answer this man gave.

I think another important trait of good managers is being able to manage up. Sometimes ICs need a shield to protect them from higher levels of management like a micromanaging director. A manager’s ability to report information and calm the leadership above him instead of letting it all pass through to the ICs can really increase team productivity and earn the respect of their direct reports.

Awesome interview

Yep, management had a reason, but look at all the companies that died because management did not understand their business and focused on short term profit instead of long term viability. Boeing is a recent example where they sold off part of their core business to create Spirit Aero systems. That’s going well. They destroyed their safety culture to push the development of the max 9, that went well. They also moved their management away from the factory further isolating from their core business. Sure management makes changes for a reason, but often management lives in its own bubble not understanding the full ramifications of its changes. Communication is critical and if things happen for no apparent reason it’s rather clear that communication between workers and management has failed in both directions. Really successful leaders walk to “factory floor” and talk to workers on a regular basis. It’s management 101 yet so many CEOs don’t do that. Too busy, too important!

So management failing to meet goals is why IC's get fired. Brilliant! Corporate America is truly f'ed up

Why do all people in high places look exactly like that guy

just do know that managers ALSO shuffle subordinantes among them. Unlucky manager either gets a risky subordinante or worse yet, stuck with one.

Sounds like the re-org problem is also a lack of transparency from leadership making ICs feel out of sorts.

All BS. I’ll let Steve talk for me: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h9acrKmJzK_cZ4U.htmlsi=OMxLKnuuv_WV5z2n

Wasn’t this guy PiP happy at Amazon? Wasn’t he gleefully firing people?

New chief information officer brings in their friends from college, fraternities and elsewhere. Rearrange the deck chairs on the ship. Hope for the best for a few years, then move onto the next company and make more money. Rinse wash repeat.

I worked for a company once where I had changed 16 managers in 2 years. The whole company was shrinking and they had let go of a lot of people. For some reason I never got laid off (even though I was hoping I would get laid off, since I was entitled to some severance).

We had 3 reorgs in 1 year at Amazon, complete management incompetence.

Yeah, some reorgs happen b/c things really do need to move around. But I've often seen many, many reorgs happen more or less b/c some new VP (or other exec) came in and 2 months later, We're reorganizing in order to (Insert bullshit platitude here). So, let me understand this. The previous exec left, was promoted, rotated to their next grooming position and now their org is fucked up enough that a total reorg is necessary? Yeah, the new person wants to put their stamp on the org. Goals didn't change, the mission didn't change. This just happened in my company with multiple orgs b/c they essentially rearranged the deck chairs on the ship, promoted some people, hired new outsiders (which is another issue). Many outsiders come in and think they can just do stuff the way their old org worked or think they can just completely revamp what is today w/out having the first f'ing clue what, how and why THIS company does things in a certain way (good and bad). And FYI new guy-- those of us that have been around a while often know things are far from ideal, but revamping it is very complex and far from easy. If it were easy we would have done it long ago, so don't think you're Harry Fucking Potter and will just magically change what might be decades old legacy stuff. If you're changing leaders multiple times a year, that's shit leadership frankly. And yeah, you'll get screwed on your review b/c your mission/goals may not have changed but new person won't know you or might not even made the effort to speak to your old leader (who may not give a shit about singing your praises b/c they have a new cast of characters themselves and nobody likes writing reviews). Let's be honest, top engineers aren't always rewarded b/c of what they accomplish-- there's a fair bit of politics and favoritism involved. You can do fantastic work and really move the needled-- but unless you have a "godfather" (godmother) it might not get noticed or you might not get compensated (promoted) for it. And the reverse is true-- somebody might have been a good enough bullshitter that they delivered something 1/2 assed and maybe not even the right thing at a macro level. But they bullshitted their way into recognition. I've seen this several times and in a few cases we've had to live with the sh*t they brought in and targeted it for decom. Re: execs/leaders getting fired. Anybody with a clue knows full well what "pursuing other opportunities" means. They got canned. Or, they're leaving b/c they're not getting the gig the next rung up the latter. In the latter case, they've already got their next gig lined up. I've seen that as well. And of course there's the people (execs/middle managers) leaving b/c they see the writing on the wall (e.g. some political decision on direction is a train wreck waiting to happen) and bail before the sh*t hits the fan.

Well, if your manager has changed some mature companies have this policy of excluding you from the ratings. It is called too new to rate something that goes both ways in the employee-supervisor relationship. Frankly it is a simple problem to solve but the amount of money the tech folks get paid vs. mature companies is sometimes lopsided which makes it hard not to get a ranking curve in. So, in reality that everyone must get rated. I almost joined Google and also Amazon but the interviewers were so torrid I backed not having a good feeling. That great gut feeling has served me well in my career.

When I worked at a big tech company many years ago, my particular sub-team got an award specifically for teamwork. It came with a little statue with our name on it and our team name. In that exact same meeting in which they presented us the awards, they announced a reorg and presented the new org chart. In that org chart literally every single one of us were split up and sent to a different sub-team. It was beyond ridiculous and was the most direct, in the face Dilbert moment I've ever experienced personally. How do you recognize and award a team specifically for teamwork, and decide that the immediate "solution" to that is to split them all up? That was definitely the beginning of the end for me. And I let their golden handcuffs keep me there way longer than I should have before I peaced out for my own sanity.

Can you also do a video on difference of senior staff and a principal responsibilities please ?

TL;DR 🧩 Reasons for Reorgs: Reorganizations often occur because leaders are trying to solve specific problems, such as failing to meet goals, team inefficiencies, or resource imbalances. 📈 Business Outcomes vs Technical Delivery: Technical teams may focus on meeting technical requirements, but leaders are more concerned with business outcomes like profitability or user engagement. 🗣 Corporate Speak and Legal Considerations: Public announcements about employee departures are often vague (e.g., "spending more time with family") due to legal risks like defamation claims. 🔄 Impact on Individual Contributors (ICs): Reorgs can be confusing for junior or mid-level ICs, often leading to changes in management and uncertainty about team objectives. 🤝 Advice for Employees in Reorgs: Employees should seek clarity about their team's mission post-reorg and proactively engage with new managers to align their work with the team's new goals. 📊 Effects of Manager Changes on Performance Ratings: Frequent changes in management can negatively impact employees' performance ratings, a documented problem with no clear solution in the industry. 📋 Assessing Reorg Impact for Managers: Managers can gauge a reorg's impact on them by looking at resource allocation and the importance of their new charter. More resources or critical projects indicate a positive impact.

„We‘ll do re-org because you didn’t meet my goal.“ „Why didn’t you communicate the goals and enable informed tech people to make decisions instead of setting arbitrary deadlines?“ „Nah, rather have some of you lose the job every now and then instead of me.“

Awesome information sharing and it never hurts if more people in business with career ambitions listen to this even though they may already understand the internal org 'metabolic dynamics'. Not saying this is a good way to manage a large business in the tech world, but it sounds like an honest explanation. What would be even more interesting is some discussion on what you need to watch out for in large US Corps (before you get stuck in a death march) such as teams with the same manager who has literally been in the same job (with a few title changes) for 10 plus years.

Really awesome & to the point video; no bs, love it.

5:58 I'm not a developer, i work in consulting... but I find it completely baffling that a director could join a team and not 1) do a full inventory of their projects, 2) communicate their goals to the team, and 3) ensure projects align to goals. Forgive my ignorance of this industry, but what else are the directors doing all day?

Tech leads are motivated by being responsible for tech. Managers are motivated by being responsible for people. If you don't like dealing with people and people issues, stick to an ic role.

You have to lie? No, you want to lie because you lack integrity. Corporations and the people who run them are cheap cowards. Full stop.

He's wrong about defamation - defamation requires a false statement of fact. "I didn't think he performed well enough" is an opinion. Even if there's any ambiguity there, true statements are also protected. So stating "He received a below expectations rating" is also protected.

Insightful!

Why do reorgs happen? Sometimes it is just because a manager wants to be seen to be doing something. For example, if the previous manager was moved because the org was under-performing and the new manager judges that the performance has bottomed, then they will do a re-org so that they have something to point to to say that the increase in performance was due to them. It would have recovered if they did nothing, but that is not so easy to talk about or put on a written performance review.

I had 9 managers in 5 years at a non-tech company.

Insightful!

C level people are constantly trying to justify their nonproductive leeching existence, so they reorg to distract from the fact they are dead weight.

Pretty sure we shipped a solution to mid-year manager changes at Amazon

Some good real talk in that video.

So, "leadership" does reorganizations to solve their problems, generating work for other people they do not really understand and frustration because "leadership" is just SHIT at proper communication? Doesn't sound like proper leadership to me!

leadership runs out of things to do, and reorgs create a facade of progress for themselves to take comfort in. at least this is so with Ed Link

I had these very same questions!