"Tech Bros" losing jobs. "Oh no", said no one ever.

I work for said company. This isn't true in terms of stated direction. The expected ratios are very normal. 8:1 and maybe 10:1 for some. AMZN tripled in size from 2020-2022. Too many layers were created. It's the layers of middle management without expected ratios that's being changed. 30:1 is not what I've seen. Maybe that's a person who lost a manager to another company.

There is a reason the military has squads/teams, platoons, companies, battalions, brigades, etc.

I can you tell you with experience, having done both the BigRobSA of managing, and then the correct way of managing. I'll take correct every day of the week, plus Sundays.

The company I work for currently has more middle managers than my last company by a large margin but is one of the most profitable companies PER EMPLOYEE.

The previous company had little regard for its employees, and the head of IT was a joke (never did a day in actual IT work when he got hired, his background was sales). I cannot tell you how many security breaches we covered up, change control was MIA, and turnover was incredibly high. All I could do as a manager was shield them from upper management, bribe them with food and OT, treat them with respect to keep them from leaving.

As it was, I had the lowest turnover of any team within the IT department, our teams would vary from 25-40 folks.

Terrible way to manage, too much strife, pissing contests, stagnation of skills, and the list goes on.

Id say right now, we are at about a 10-15:1 ratio for teams. And 15 is where the start eyeballing if that team should be broken up into a second team. Line of demarcation.

Learn to plumb

cslifer said:

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He isn't wrong though. The person claiming hundreds of direct reports doesn't appear to use the term the same as most people. He appears to be claiming everyone below him in the organization chart is a "direct report".

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He is wrong. They all reported to me, doing easy labor based work. I hired them, fired them, did their HR paperwork,payroll, trained some of them, would do undercover boss stuff to make sure they were doing it right, etc.

I traveled all of the time.

Probably the most fun job I've had.

The idea that all jobs are the same is where people are making the mistake. This wasn't IT, which I did for 20 yrs. That had, as i said, a much smaller team of about 20, give or take, and everyone got along. We were a family. Which is where my question about 30 being "too much" came from.

I guess if you had 30 dip****s, yeah, that would be entirely too much.


Dont hire dip****s.

Pumpkinhead said:

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https://www.trueup.io/job-trend

Open tech jobs at start-ups, tech unicorns, and public tech companies currently small trending up over last 2 years after big drop in 2022 from post-pandemics excess hiring hangover.

2022: high of 460K
2023: low of 180K
2024: 205K
2025: 212K

layoffs in 2023: 430K
Projected layoffs in 2025: 160K (approx. +60K open jobs less layoffs)

Lots of stats in the site data above if interested.

Summary the pandemic in 2020-2022 when the entire world started working from home causes a bloated tech industry to quickly form that then had a big market correction drop in 2023 but now the tech job count has been on a slowly positive (increasing) trend last couple of years.

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There aren't near that many jobs available (nor have there been the last 5 years). Companies post job openings to curate resumes and appear to be hiring while in reality they have a hiring freeze and/or are waiting for the right h1b visa guy to fill a spot. Its a pretty old trick they have been playing for awhile now. I don't dispute the overall trend though.

His statement that he did payroll and other tasks for 100s of employees is crazy. They either had the world's most efficient timekeeping/payroll system, or all of the employees were salaried and only input negative time. Either way, he would be spending an ungodly amount of time just on simple HR tasks. So if he did have 100s of direct reports, he sounds more like a glorified supervisor and not a leader.

javajaws said:

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Pumpkinhead said:

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https://www.trueup.io/job-trend

Open tech jobs at start-ups, tech unicorns, and public tech companies currently small trending up over last 2 years after big drop in 2022 from post-pandemics excess hiring hangover.

2022: high of 460K
2023: low of 180K
2024: 205K
2025: 212K

layoffs in 2023: 430K
Projected layoffs in 2025: 160K (approx. +60K open jobs less layoffs)

Lots of stats in the site data above if interested.

Summary the pandemic in 2020-2022 when the entire world started working from home causes a bloated tech industry to quickly form that then had a big market correction drop in 2023 but now the tech job count has been on a slowly positive (increasing) trend last couple of years.

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There aren't near that many jobs available (nor have there been the last 5 years). Companies post job openings to curate resumes and appear to be hiring while in reality they have a hiring freeze and/or are waiting for the right h1b visa guy to fill a spot. Its a pretty old trick they have been playing for awhile now. I don't dispute the overall trend though.

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companies also post jobs if they are recruiting. Can't keep your school recruiting pipelines open if you have no jobs to offer.

Captain Winky said:

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His statement that he did payroll and other tasks for 100s of employees is crazy. They either had the world's most efficient timekeeping/payroll system, or all of the employees were salaried and only input negative time. Either way, he would be spending an ungodly amount of time just on simple HR tasks. So if he did have 100s of direct reports, he sounds more like a glorified supervisor and not a leader.

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LOL

Kept track of their hours nightly, 5 nights a week, in excel. Submitted it biweekly to 3d party payroll.

ETA: That same Sr VP, after we all got let go after acquisition, started his own company and I'm his operations manager as well as now being in mgmnt at my main job for a major diesel manufacturer. We're still small, but growing.

Keep assuming everything is so hard, though.

If you were let go, who was left running the company?

Replying to my comment about HR in Tech.

About an hour after I posted that, HR sent out an Email about new training material on - How to work with Gen Z.

I wonder if they're going to put Gen Z through a course about how to work for a Gen X manager who cares more about your job performance than your feelings or pronouns.

I'm not completely cold-hearted though, I did let my married lesbian direct report take a day off when her cat died. But I didn't need a training class for that, it's just called not being an a-hole to your direct reports when they have a personal need.

cslifer said:

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If you were let go, who was left running the company?

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Which company?

Small one? The owner. Only a couple employees right now.

Main job? Corporate, so eleventy layers of management. My line has 29 operators right now. We oftenrun multiple lines, but they're not direct reports.

Major RIF going down at my company this week.

Captain Winky said:

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His statement that he did payroll and other tasks for 100s of employees is crazy. They either had the world's most efficient timekeeping/payroll system, or all of the employees were salaried and only input negative time. Either way, he would be spending an ungodly amount of time just on simple HR tasks. So if he did have 100s of direct reports, he sounds more like a glorified supervisor and not a leader.

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And after being superboss still had plenty of time leftover to average 12 posts a day here .

Tea Party said:

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Captain Winky said:

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His statement that he did payroll and other tasks for 100s of employees is crazy. They either had the world's most efficient timekeeping/payroll system, or all of the employees were salaried and only input negative time. Either way, he would be spending an ungodly amount of time just on simple HR tasks. So if he did have 100s of direct reports, he sounds more like a glorified supervisor and not a leader.

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And after being superboss still had plenty of time leftover to average 12 posts a day here .

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Hell, my old boss, an Ag, turned me on to the old B&P board.

And ...here we are.

Logos Stick said:

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Major RIF going down at my company this week.

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This is a thumbs up post?

I worked in tech for 30 years starting in the 80s for mainly EDS, Dell Services, and Perot Systems. These companies have always laid off employees since I can remember. None of them exist now.

grovitecowgirl said:

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I worked in tech for 30 years starting in the 80s for mainly EDS, Dell Services, and Perot Systems. These companies have always laid off employees since I can remember. None of them exist now.

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I haven't looked in a decade but I assume they've been replaced by Indians - i.e. Tata, Wipro, HCL, etc.

Those companies certainly employ plenty of warm bodies.

TCS claims over 600,000 employees on revenues of $30B.
https://www.tcs.com/who-we-are/newsroom/press-release/tcs-financial-results-q4-fy-2025

That's a whopping $50,000 revenue per employee.

Quote:

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I haven't looked in a decade but I assume they've been replaced by Indians - i.e. Tata, Wipro, HCL, etc.

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Dell Services was the last company I worked for and it was bought by NTT Data. I was laid off shortly before they acquired it. Dell Services had hired a lot of Indians and made a lot of them managers. The lady that was my manager was incredibly hard to work for. It was kind of a relief to be laid off. She gave me nightmares. Perot Systems was bought by Dell and became Dell Services. I don't even know who the last owner of EDS was.

HollywoodBQ said:

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Replying to my comment about HR in Tech.

About an hour after I posted that, HR sent out an Email about new training material on - How to work with Gen Z.

I wonder if they're going to put Gen Z through a course about how to work for a Gen X manager who cares more about your job performance than your feelings or pronouns.

I'm not completely cold-hearted though, I did let my married lesbian direct report take a day off when her cat died. But I didn't need a training class for that, it's just called not being an a-hole to your direct reports when they have a personal need.

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You "let" them take off? Is that still a thing? Did they have to actually ask?

I just tell my boss I'm not working today or I put in the PTO requesting in WD, mark by calendar OOO, and don't even email my manager. I figure the workday notice is good enough, Been like that for at least the last 15 years of my career at relatively large legacy tech companies.

txyaloo said:

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HollywoodBQ said:

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Replying to my comment about HR in Tech.

About an hour after I posted that, HR sent out an Email about new training material on - How to work with Gen Z.

I wonder if they're going to put Gen Z through a course about how to work for a Gen X manager who cares more about your job performance than your feelings or pronouns.

I'm not completely cold-hearted though, I did let my married lesbian direct report take a day off when her cat died. But I didn't need a training class for that, it's just called not being an a-hole to your direct reports when they have a personal need.

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You "let" them take off? Is that still a thing? Did they have to actually ask?

I just tell my boss I'm not working today or I put in the PTO requesting in WD, mark by calendar OOO, and don't even email my manager. I figure the workday notice is good enough, Been like that for at least the last 15 years of my career at relatively large legacy tech companies.

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Tell me you don't report to Subcontinent managers without telling me.

They can't keep putting the screws to the H-1Bs if they treat the regular Americans like regular professional adults.