After 5 years in big tech, getting laid off shook my sense of loyalty. I always believed long hours, strong results, and being a “team player” meant stability — but it didn’t. Now I’m rethinking how much trust to put in any employer.

In tech, do you think loyalty is ever earned, or is it just temporary alignment of incentives?

Temporary. Everywhere, not just big tech.

So temporary and fleeting. I refuse to bend over backwards for a company anymore. Trust no employer.

Try 25 years of surviving multiple layoffs, erratic changes, and tech bubbles. You are only as good as your next project/release. Get comfy with ambiguity and ageism if you plan to remain in tech, the only thing loyalty will get you these days is a merit badge in complacency.

Loyalty is outdated.

No. I’ve been around the block a few times and loyalty is an illusion. You can have a great boss and they may want to keep you but ultimately if it’s you or them, it’ll be you.

The best example of corporate loyalty I had ever seen was a company I worked for as a temp. During the Great Recession things were very hard in their industry and their state. The owner implemented a belt tightening process of taking no income himself and asking each team member to take a temporary income cut of 10% so they could all stay working.

Very impressive.

Everyone is expendable. And I mean everyone. I've worked at companies where even the head of HR was let go after 20 years. Once you come to the realization that every day you come into (or sign in remotely at) work could be your last, the less it will sting when it happens. At the end of the day a company's main priority is the bottom line. When that starts to become fragile, then people will lose their jobs. Sometimes there are signs when it is foreseeable, sometimes there aren't. On that note, don't live in constant fear of losing your job. It's going to happen one day voluntarily or not. Enjoy your life, be a good person, and keep your skills and resume up to date!

Loyalty is meaningless nowadays in tech.

There is no such thing as loyalty in the corporate world. I was a senior engineer for a bank the last 12 years. I never had any issues at the company and always had great reviews. I then got laid off for living in a city they no longer deemed worthy after allowing me to move there.

I hate to tell you this, but loyalty died a long time ago. No company is ever going to be loyal to its employees. It’s always going to prioritize profit first. People who stay at their companies a long time will make less than others who job every once in a while. That’s not to say you cannot stay at a job a long time if you want to. Just to go in with your eyes open and know what to expect. And always keep your résumé up-to-date. 

Companies are no longer loyal to their employees.

This needs to change but I have no idea where to start. Ideas anyone? Wall Street has strong incentives to cut employees to boost profits.

Lobbyists? Meh.
Unions? Meh.
Revolution? Meh.

Universal basic income? Meh.

At some point companies will lose enough customers to unemployment so it impacts the bottom line. Then we will be in the next Great Depression. Bread lines etc. Can’t wait. Sounds like fun.

Loyalty may exist amongst people, but not between a company and employees.

If you survive a round of layoff, it may be that someone is looking out for you, but that may not be the case next time.

This is true in any company, not just tech.

At the end of the day, you are just a title, salary number, age, location on some consultant’s pivot table to be potentially selected for an anonymous WARN-avoiding (they pay you 60 days then officially cut you)!layoff that your boss may find out about the day before. Your network and skills and experience and USP (yes, impact and business value) are your employability in this capitalist society.

USP == Unique Selling Proposition

The good old days of loyalty from employers are GONE. It’s all about the profits and making sure the board and shareholders are seeing the earnings

You may be able to find some loyalty at a smaller company. But there is a trade-off, less pay and benefits (typically). I worked at a large defense company and survived many rounds of layoffs. That is mainly because I worked my butt off and was in a role that was not easily replaceable. But it totally burned me out.

I was fortunate to find a decent paying roll at a smaller company. They have periodic 'fat-trimming' where the low performers are let go. So, to summarize my 30 years of survival: Don't be in the bottom percentile(s) of performers, find a roll where your skill-set is not easily replaceable, work hard and be seen as dependable. Not a guarantee, that you won't be let go but it will make it less likely.

One other thing I noticed in my career is that those who are overly ambitious, tend to get promoted above their capabilities and end up in layoffs. Now, I am not saying you shouldn't strive to advance yourself​ but you need to know your limitations. Early in my career I had an older employee tell me to work hard and keep my head down. Stick your head up (i.e. self promotion with nothing to back it up) and it will be cut.

there is no such thing as loyalty, they'll drop you like a bad habit if the time is right. always focus on yourself and be the best version of you

As long as someone else is signing your paycheck, job security does not exist.

Sadly you can be pathetic or great at your job...it seems like stability only comes if you work for peanuts. The alternative seems to be contracting where you leave before they can lay you off. The whole thing seems to be bean counters killing what used to be an interesting industry. Welcome to the era of zero innovation where profits/high stock valuations come from firing people.

I've been at the same large tech company for 30 years and through well over a dozen layoffs, have never been impacted. I stopped managing for a decade, back to IC, because I hated laying people off all the time. Now I'm back to "formal" leadership and it's right back to a layoff party. Yep, still hate it.

Now with status restored, I see that things haven't changed at all... Everything and everyone is a transactional number with dollar signs by their name. Globalization is bigger than ever. I have a pretty large org with only five Americans. I would prefer 75% Americans, not 10%. But, at the end of the day Americans now cost 4 times as much as workers in India for the identical job. We have replaced convenience, culture, and communication with cost.

AI is now going to make things worse for all of the young people, or most of them. I will lay off a ton of people with the AI we are creating. It's going to get bad, so fast, it will make your head spin. If I don't, someone else will. I see a two year horizon to where I can cut my org in half. Think about that. Two years, clear line of sight to 50% HC reduction. We don't even do easily repeatable work, but its going to be easy.

Last but not least, RTO is just a tool to make expensive people quit. It's bad for people. It's bad for the environment. When you have one person in a site, it's just punishment for them, not rationale. When I retire the first thing I will do is write a book exposing this practice.

It’s temporary and not just in tech.

There is no loyalty.

I had a similar situation, but after a longer tenure. We had weathered some tough times both in the company and personally, and I really felt like they were the exception to the "never trust a 'family-like environment' from an employer", but I was proven wrong. At the end of the day, it is a company whose goal is to generate money and stay afloat, and all employees are just a line item, regardless of atmosphere, structure, or interactivity from higher ups. In my situation, I was actually waiting on a yearly review (with a promise of "soon"), and I knew things were a little sparse, but I got a call in the morning on pay day and was completely removed from everything within 5 minutes of the call ending. Given the atmosphere and loyalty I had proved time and time again, I had expected more: A heads up with a chance to gather my resources and look elsewhere, or even a chance (if even remote) to pivot, but what I got was a cold disconnect.

You are the employee, and you are employed until you are not, it is as simple as that. Do not be fooled.