Growth Manager

What does your ex boss do? What roles were impacted?

Software Developer

One of my old companies is a startup, a small team of about 8 people after I left. I'm still in touch with them and have a great relationship with everyone there. My ex boss recently laid off aroun...

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

One of my old companies is a startup, a small team of about 8 people after I left. I'm still in touch with them and have a great relationship with everyone there. My ex boss recently laid off around half of the team. In a full team hands-on team the next day he said that the company has enough funds to sustain for around 8 years right now. The people who got laid were all questioning reality since they were a part of the founding team.

My ex boss screwed up

Software Engineer

My ex boss screwed up- Grapevine

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Painful to see so many startups run out of money/ shut down. Is your company doing good?

Founders are not shitposting on the socials, so that’s good I think 😅

How many of you had ESOP related promises by founders broken by them ? Could any of you appeal to their better senses and get any money or were you hung out to dry completely ??

ESOP related problems

Support specialist

Did you face any consequences later in your career because of the karma?

Left a job on bad term?

I don't know why everyone is making a big deal out of layoffs. Even the ones who laid off are not that concerned than the ones who comment.

Laid off employees literally get free money upwards of 10 lakhs in many cases of senior developers who are laid off from top tech startups. Companies pay severance equal to 3-6 months salary of laid off employees. Some even offer other benefits as well.

I personally know a couple of Devs who got around ~9-10L in severance pay. So, yeah if there are layoffs happening in funded tech startups or leading tech companies, considering their pay range, laid off employees get handsome severance pay including employee benefits

Layoffs a big deal? Positive side of layoffs

Hope you get laid-off & get a good severance package! Will see how your job search goes.

Engineering manager

Product Designer

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

I've 3 yoe, currently working in a very small startup as full-stack dev. Company's revenue is declining from Q4 last year.

Every month layoffs are happening in each team. Last week, a dev was laid off from my team.

No hike till now, working here from last 1.5 years. Although, got performance bonus twice.

I want to work on a few ideas, tried to work on weekends but it led to burn out and started affecting my health, suffered from mental fatigue.

Please suggest.

Work on own startup vs switch to another startup

It's gonna be long thread. 

I have been working as lead engineer in a early stage startup since last one year. 

Founder (20 years exp in Product Management) raised some money from friends & family to start it and but company was running negative from February and he put his money to pay employees salary for March & April and We were hoping for some investment in April but that didn't happen. 

During May & June, he was looking for funding more aggressively and even after having a good background in academics & top tech work experience in product management, no investor got convinced to invest in it. 

Our salary for March & April was delayed from actual payroll date by 7 days and 21 days respectively and We were expecting our May salary to be delayed by same period and our company was about to complete one year in first week of July so we had some one year benefits associated as well. 

But Boom, he invited everyone on call and tells that company will shutting it's operation from next day itself. And he will help us find our new jobs and he doesn't any clarity on pending salary. 

Although we knew, our company is not in good shape so salary cut or something might be happening soon but didn't expect this. 

Now, we have to find other jobs and also be unemployed while searching for job and also get exploited by other companies because we will be desperate to find jobs to pay our bills. 

I think, he did this just before 5-6 days of our one year anniversary just because he doesn't get legally bound to pay our one year benefits. 

I for sure, not gonna join any early stage in future who doesn't have enough funding. 

Just wanted to put this story out of my mind. Open for any suggestions you have for me

Thank you

Startup let go Eng team on 1 day notice

Employees who are top performers are laid off. 
Employees who are in a firm for a long time are laid off. 
Employees who are freshers are laid off. 
Employees from IIMs/IITs are laid off. 
Employees who work just to get the job done are laid off. 
Seniors are laid off. 
Juniors are laid off
Hard working employees who get good ratings and give extra hours are laid off. 
Bad peforming ones are obviously laid off. 

Is there anyone who is safe. It's just at the mercy of few decision makers at the top and no matter what you do you will never be safe. 

Now I understand why parents say that government job is better.

Is there a pattern in layoffs

Business analyst

So I joined a startup on Oct, 23(6 months completed).  They are struggling to raise funds. From Jan, they started layoffs from ops and customer support, went to major cost-cutting: no tea, snacks, giving the floor to rent, restricting the leaves: like for leave, you have to get approval from HR and the CEO, not the manager.  I'm in a tech team, and multiple products are lined up for release, so work is there, but ultra micro-managing. I'm getting opportunities but I'm not sure whether to switch or not. 

I leave my last job in 5 months due to their funding issue. That's why I'm skeptical to leave or not. 

Would love to hear advice.

To switch or not

I left a startup due to financial difficulties within the organization. Salaries were delayed for 3 months, however, the team and my previous employers have been very good to me throughout my time there, and it was solely due to the circumstances that I had to part ways. 

Now, the CEO has reached out to me, asking me to join as a part-time consultant on a case-by-case basis to help them resolve their issues, while I continue with my new job. This opportunity could provide me with additional income, but I have concerns about whether they will pay me for my consultations. 

Should I take the opportunity? How much should I ask for?

Appreciate your thoughts!

📢 Seeking Community Opinion 🤔

Legal

Any suggestions how to get back to previous  salary?

Due to financial situation and sudden layoff, I had to join in some company for 25Lpa to support my family, my previous is 37.5Lpa

I was laid off last year, the CTC was reasonably high there (110k USD base, not practical in India ik... Maybe that's why they had to cut us off). That of course was quite a down time but I was happy that I had a lot of side projects in hand, and was up to date with the tech stack. It's something I learned, "A company is a company, nothing less or more than that.

Curious to know, what are your lessons from these times? That one thing you wish you told/reminded yourself before these lay offs?

To me, it would be:

1. Stay humble. Your salary or your company shouldn't define your attitude.
2. Keep learning. Find time for your personal growth.
3. Stay active in the community, be aware of what's happening. Be it good or bad, it can come to you as well.
4. Save while you can! Savings have helped me a lot.

P.S: I mentioned my base pay from prev salary not to boast about it, there is nothing to boast about tbh
... It's just to mention more context.

Lessons from the layoffs?

Boys and girls, Simpl is laying heavy this week. Stay tuned for my rant post in some days

Also Dm if you can refer for sde jobs, thanks

Simpl Layoffs

Bruh they were hiring last week. DM me for referrals at Angel One. (Fully remote for SDEs)

Product Manager

I got laid off in Jan. Took 4 months to land a job finally and joined a new company in May.
This new company seems to be silently laying off people now in the name of cost cutting and likely be trying to raise next round of funding although they previously raised previous round in Aug-2022.
Although right now it's more of they need me (my role, I'm the only person of this role) more than I need them, I'm 70% confident that I might not be impacted, but the 30% chance is keeping me sleepless. What do I do? Pretty traumatized from the first layoff.

What should I do?

I was working at a Start-up more than a year back. We were required to either raise funds or do something else, against what we wanted to do, to move forward. 

One day, the co founders got us on a call (<10 people team), and explained the situation to us. 

Either an acquisition or a round of funding was the only chance. We hadn't raised any round up until then. 

Unfortunately, we had to bid goodbye to something that we were passionately working on.

Lay-offs!

But, we got 2 months notice. And on top of that, we were encouraged to prepare for interviews throughout those 2 months (while giving minimal importance to work). 

I literally cried multiple times because of the thought of having to leave the amazing team. 

The founders helped us with all the support, and made use of their network to help us get through as well. We're still in touch with the team, and all of us are at relatively good positions now. 

(Although anonymous, just wanted to share this out there with all of you folks. And I try to 'help it forward' as much as possible)

Good layoffs!

There is big layoff 50% in reliance retail - jiomart B2B business.

Reasons
Very poor management, aggressive hiring, creating business that does not exist,  downfall of business.

Compensation -

Asked people to resign & said to serve notice 90 days.
No additional support or benefit.

Layoff in Reliance Retail

Analyst

"Healthtech startup implodes, axes 3/4 of workforce after lavish Series-C funding round! Upper management rewards themselves with director-level promotions, while loyal employees are left in the lurch. In a ruthless move, the company offers a two-month notice period but refuses to provide termination letters, forcing employees to quit and forfeit their rightful severance pay. The very same employees who contributed to the startup's success are now callously discarded, leaving many wondering if greed and betrayal are the new industry standards."

Hint - it's amongst one of the biggest emr platform and says doctor first approach.

Layoff news - Major healthtech startup

Company - Healthplix technologies 
 Yes the news is real, I have a couple of freida there in sales, support, tech and marketing. 
  
 All of them had a meeting with HR today and we're told June would be your last day working day.

I used to work in a start up in Bangalore, they overhired in 2022 and overpaid the freshers, more than the experienced engineers were getting paid.
To fix this put 30% of workforce on pip, laid off 20% I was one of them. 2 months later, they did open layoffs, did it again in 2 months, and one of my friends there heard the founders cracking a laugh that even the investors wouldn't have expected us to do this so fast.

I joined another company, they lost the client I was hired for, and few more clients, I was told they will have to do layoffs and my name is in the list. So they asked me to resign and I refused by saying we'll consider a last working day, if I get an offer I'll resign otherwise anyway I'll have to be laid off and they agreed. This happened one month after I had joined this company ( also a startup ).


So, being laid off once was already a big enough punch of reality, with an education loan on my head.
I joined another company and got laid off again. Tough shit.


I ended up getting an offer before my lwd.
I am not from any IIT, I am not an exceptional engineer. I am very bad interviews, my resume usually doesn't get shortlisted.

Sheer volume of effort I put made the impact on me getting a job.
Right now I am the best job of my career, with a better management.


Trying to say, it's a tough time. But you'll get through it.

PIP then laid off, again laid off

Can relate op I got laid off twice last year. Got trauma because of that 💀. More power to you

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

Context: 10.5 YOE, Marketing lead. I've been looking for a switch since September last year. I'd seen signs of maybe my role or the company itself folding very early and knew 'twas time to bolt. But it's not that easy. Back then - 1 year in a startup meant hey not bad, people still spoke to you and considered your profile. These days, they treat you like Ebola if you've not had your ass stuck in the same place for 3-5 years. 

Anyway, so the majority of my time searching for jobs was the shitty Easy Apply or IIMJOBS premium account route. Suprise suprise. It doesn't work. But hey I was still employed and not nearly as motivated as someone who's unemployed. 

Cut to layoffs: Got laid off with my whole team and a huge chunk of other leaders. My first layoff, felt hilariously like the last day of school. To the org's credit they gave us 3 month severance, leave encashments and extra months for those who'd been there for 2 years+. In hindsight hearing the horror stories of 2k severance from Byju's. I'm grateful for the nice golden parachute I got. I'll be honest, it contributed heavily to my mental stability. I had time, I had leverage, I didn't have to run for the first shitty opportunity that came my way. 

The How I did it (why you struggled through the above stream of consciousness) 

- Wrote to 159 founders with one pagers to 35 of them with ideas on how i'd lead their marketing function. 5 replies. 3 interviews. 2 offers - didn't take em cuz they were super early stage or diff cities. This is immediately in month 1 so I've already started feeling icky about not getting great brands to have in my set. 
- Easy Applied to 768 (I ran a Gmail search, this is a real number) jobs. 99% no responses or you've been rejected. 
-Kept changing one letter on my Naukri.com profile, got me 6 calls, 3 interviews and 1 conversion 

I think theres a word limit to posts 🥲 following up as comments below.

Finally got a job (here's the do's and dont's)

Part 3 
  
 - Add HRs and hiring managers on LinkedIn, send them free ideas and strategies. Its ok if they steal them it meant they were great. One of them will refer you, remember you or hire you. 
 - Have a CV and a summary (half a page) that gets people excited about wanting to read the CV. Only areas of expertise and bullet points for results  
 - Don't put the OpentoWork filter on your LinkedIn DP. Its radioactive. I know people actively avoid those profiles. But make sure to keep open to work beacon on for recruiters. It pushes you ahead  
 - Dont post low effort i need a job because im laid off, i dont have money, copy pasted by millions on Linkedin. If you're gonna publically ask for a job, make sure that post has enuff of your skillset screaming for a potential hirer to want to explore more. Else you'll get velle gadhe typing CFBR 
 - Dont be anal or choosy about interviewing, i literally gave 35-50 in 3 months that culminated in 4 offers. Each one taught me something, heck ive spoken to startups with 7 peeps in it  
 - The only one that can negotiate CTC is the one that can walk away. When the offer i wanted finally came, my fixed went down a tad, but variable increased. The role was worth it so i didnt bother negotiating. Places i wasnt excited about - oh i quoted 30% hikes and got it at one place :p

Brand marketing manager

One of my close friends is not liking the work in the current company due to the terrible WLB. He is planning to switch to a new company but doesn't want to show this current company experience of 3+ months. Have you ever come across such a situation? What's the best thing to do? If he reveals to the new employer then it won't be good on his resume because the company previous to the current one laid off 50% of employees and unfortunately he got affected too in that layoffs. So, due to tough market conditions he has joined a startup and realised that he can't sustain here for long.

Please guide if it's alright not to put the last 3 months experience in the resume and apply for new jobs.

My ex boss screwed up

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