Welp, I got laid off today along with 40% of Block. I’m still totally in shock an have no idea what comes next, but if you have need for a Principal Frontend Engineer hit me up!
Remote
Katie Sylor-Miller
@ksylor@front-end.social
mastodon 4.7.3Principal Frontend Engineer. Formerly @ Square/Block & Etsy. Fairy Gitmother @ ohshitgit.com, Pronouns are she/her. opinions are my own
1247 Followers
360 Following
12 Posts
Joined June 01, 2023
ohshitgit.com:
sylormiller.com:
Lmao a recruiter reached out to see if I was interested in being the founding frontend engineer for the VC funded startup Sauron. I shit you not. Tech bros were like “what LoTR reference can we use that is more blatantly evil than Palantir? I know, name it after the character that represents the literal devil! Yes! People will definitely want buy our home automation app with that name!”
It is truly surreal to be a part of a big news story that’s brought out all the LinkedIn vultures and influencers and thought leaders. There are 4,000 of us without jobs, with uncertain futures, full of anxiety for our families. And if your first instinct is to write a thinkpiece then you need to reexamine your fucking priorities
Replying to
@drewpickard@mastodon.social yeah the “small” one was because they suddenly instituted minimum PR count numbers *during calibration* and increased the required percentage of “below meets” to be like, 15%% instead of 7%, and then fired everyone in below because they were a “low performer”. So we all thought we were done & safe for a bit, but nope.
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@sbourne@mastodon.social yeah, it’s a total shock. We just had layoffs 2 weeks ago where ~300 engineers were let go. So this massive cut was just totally unexpected
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@alavie@kolektiva.social @drewpickard@mastodon.social all the tech CEOs are in the same group chats
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@kevinrns@mstdn.social thanks! I’m frankly still in shock and not quite ready to get into the interview slog just yet. When I’m ready I’ll post a real one with hashtags, etc.
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@cedmax@masto.cazzo.lol @misprintedtype@front-end.social my experience is literally the same on all counts - except my kids tell me I’m the *only* mom that plays video games. The normie parents think I’m crazy when I go on about low screen time, no social media, no YouTube unless I approve the creator, and we waited till 8th grade for phones, etc.
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@ScottGrimmett@mastodon.au @rysiek@mstdn.social yeah, I think it’s both? He is an AI true believer AND needed to do something drastic about financials. Telling tho that none of the c-suite who caused the mess is out.
@dandean@indieweb.social this x10000
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@db@magrathea.space @alavie@kolektiva.social @drewpickard@mastodon.social can’t help but wonder if I put a target on my back for the second round of layoffs by vocally pushing back against throwing away decades of research by using numbers that have been debunked. I pushed to use research backed methods for measuring productivity instead. But, who knows
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@kkrishnanand@mastodon.social aw thanks, I’m in the Boston area, appreciate the thought though!