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points by Twirrim 3 days ago | 0 comments

I've a neighbour who declined, and then got hit by layoffs. It was quite a gamble, and they lost out big time.

Honestly, if work was to come at me with a buy-out offer, and I was in a position to be able to afford to not work for a few years, I'd probably accept. Maybe go find some non-tech work for a little bit to stretch the dollars and ensure I have health insurance.

We're in such a bubble at the moment, things are going to get really rough.

[–] red-iron-pine 3 days ago

> Maybe go find some non-tech work for a little bit to stretch the dollars and ensure I have health insurance.

son let me tell you about health care coverage at non-FAANG companies... it ain't great.

and the market is brutal out there. you're gonna have to try hard to get a Home Depot job

[–] xnx 3 days ago

> you're gonna have to try hard to get a Home Depot job

Things are definitely weird because the current unemployment rate isn't far off 50 year lows: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE

[–] noahbp 3 days ago

The unemployment rate is misleading; it is harder than any time before 2008 to get a new job: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UEMPMEAN

[–] hyperadvanced 3 days ago

Yeah unemployment famously doesn’t include those who’ve given up… I fear there are many more than we’re willing to admit

[–] runarberg 3 days ago

That job exist does not equate that good jobs exist. Some jobs are far away requiring you to commute for two hours (you can’t because you have a family) or move (you can‘t because you can‘t afford the move), most are low paying to the extent that they are simply not even worth your time. Many are stressful (to the extent you physically can‘t do them), etc. etc.

Anyway, this has been explained a lot in the literature, unemployment rates are a poor measure of the difficulty of finding a job.

[–] sda2 3 days ago

I'm not sure if one can trust any numbers posted by the federal government.

[–] cute_boi 2 days ago

Honestly, when I see my friends out of job, I question if these data are rigged...

[–] Twirrim 2 days ago

I've spent most of my career non-FAANG. Health insurance has been fine previously, and mostly I know folks outside of the tech industry having similar coverage. FAANG health insurance isn't that great a thing these days. It has been nickled and dimed about as much as anything else.

[–] fn-mote 3 days ago

> son let me tell you about health care coverage at non-FAANG companies... it ain't great

Union job will get you good health insurance.

Software probably isn’t that, but if you need health insurance more than cash, be strategic.

If you’re getting screwed on the compensation and it’s important enough to you, think outside the box about the area you work in.

> you're gonna have to try hard to get a Home Depot job

Only the most desperate SWE/HN poster is looking for hourly jobs at Home Depot. I think this is bogus.

[–] bigstrat2003 3 days ago

I've worked at plenty of non-FAANG companies. Only at those companies, in fact. The health care coverage was fine at most of them.

[–] fnordpiglet 3 days ago

I’ve been in the industry a long time and benefits at FAANG are not great. Deductibles are high, subsidy pretty average, overall package weak. Earlier in my career I paid nothing for insurance, had a lot of fringe benefits, and I was genuinely grateful for the perks. I’ve looked at ACA alternatives compared to my FAANG benefits and it wasn’t a huge difference frankly - better on the margin but nothing to write home about, at least in my local market.

The fact people have to find a job not for money but for health insurance is about as dystopian as I can imagine. Toil just to not get sick and go broke, not because you need the money. What a sad world we built for ourselves.

[–] kakacik 3 days ago

> What a sad world we built for ourselves.

Sad country, just US. Rest of the western world works much better. But this is what US population wants, more direct money at all costs and praying all the time no nasty health surprise is around the corner. Otherwise you are a commie or worse. Higher education is exactly the same.

Given overall health of US population thats not a good bet and it only gets worse with age.

[–] fnordpiglet 2 days ago

I think no one wants this personally, but there is so much money - and employment - behind the private pay system that it’s virtually impossible to reform it. There is also a real aspect that the system was designed by those in power to further a necessity to work, an overriding fear that people might idle or not work with maximum productivity. Once the system was laid down. With dozens of huge insurance companies and even more smaller ones, with billing departments, coding clerks, adjusters, claim processors, duplicated at every clinic, hospital, insurance company, and the constellation of other roles, partners, providers, it’s now employing millions of people just to operate this hideous machine of national suffering. Talk of reforming it into a single payer system or a socialized system is wildly unpopular with everyone who depends on the current system - millions upon millions of people, and deep spending companies supporting candidates. In a country where either politicians either win by a landslide due to partisan politics, in which case it doesn’t matter what constituents think, or the margins of victory are so narrow that you can’t afford to screw over millions and millions of people through direct action like legislation, the system is metastasizing. There are solutions to the health care problem from a consumer point of view, but the churn it would cause on the employment side would be profound and structural. My view is probably the best strategy is make money young here and emigrate to a place worth living, which is painful to say.

There’s very little I can see truly breaking American society but I think the stark stupidity of health care here is up on the top.

[–] kakacik 2 days ago

These systems seem unbeatable but thats just an illusion. Either market forces will make it so unattainable that people will simply revolt due to frequently dying from stuff thats curable in Haiti, some saner politician in style of Kennedy will come and make change (with very high risk of getting killed but that risk is there in all cases, see mr trump) or some other massive shock will happen. System in US is so twisted and unfair where 99% lose, sometimes in very life-destroying manners.

Shocks do come, nothing is static. One may end up bankrupt earlier than correction happens though. Vote with your feet if you want change earlier than it coming from the top.

[–] bob1029 3 days ago

> let me tell you about health care coverage

I haven't had any coverage in 3 years. It's not the end of the world. People who lose their shit over weird tail risks are missing out on the competitive advantage. You can compensate for the expensive doctors and prescription meds with more exercise and cleaner diets.

I always looked at employer sponsored health care as a sort of trap. I never got involved in it. Every insurance premium I would have paid has gone to a retirement, investment or savings account instead. One big open runway is a lot more useful than a bunch of smaller ones with weird constraints. The idea of a health savings account amuses me.

[–] sterlind 6 hours ago

if you get hit by a car or a tree falls on you or you have some random medical emergency (which can and does happen to healthy people all the time) then you're in for a world of hurt.

please reconsider.

[–] taiwan_num1 3 days ago

Not to start an argument, but do you really think you could easily find non-tech work that also provides health insurance? I get a little triggered at this line of thinking. People often day dream about working as a Costco receipt checker without realizing you literally have to work your way up from seasonal to part-time to full-time over years. And that's assuming you can even get hired as a seasonal worker with a 5+ year unemployment gap on your Resume (your SWE career).

I'm realizing I'm a little bit too passionate about this lol but I would love to hear if you have a specific plan or goal in mind so I can copy it. For me BaristaFIRE would be ideal, but with so many friends going through the layoff/unemployment cycle and hearing their experiences I've concluded it's much more pragmatic to stay in tech.

[–] annzabelle 3 days ago

This is all a bit out there, but I moved to New Zealand on a working holiday visa, and within two weeks of settling down in a particular spot (after a two month road trip), I had two job offers, one very relaxed retail, and one tech-adjacent for a small civil engineering firm. I'm making about a quarter the take home I did in the US, but I've cut my expenses a lot (bought my car in cash, carpool to work to save gas money, rent a room in a house instead of a whole apartment, no food delivery), and I'm using this time to reevaluate my values and work on building a lifestyle that does not rely on earning a six figure salary.

My plan when I return is to get my EMT and moonlight as an ER tech while doing prerequisites for PA school or maybe medical physics.

[–] selimthegrim 3 days ago

One of my biggest regrets is not availing myself of an NZ Working Holiday visa in 2014.

[–] killingtime74 2 days ago

This is really a grass is greener scenario because I just left there (NZ) along with a large amount of people I know because of the bad economy.

[–] annzabelle 2 days ago

I heard a lot of doom and gloom about the economy before I came here, but finding a job proved to be straightforward. The pay leaves a lot to be desired, and I'm not intending to extend my visa because of that.

Caveat: I'm not living in a typical region of the country, I'm in Wānaka, which is easier to find a job in but also more expensive than most of the country.

[–] selimthegrim 22 hours ago

I’ve been there but I figured those were all tourist jobs.

[–] annzabelle 15 hours ago

I guess I didn't make the distinction between "any job" and "any job in my field." It's very easy to get offers for "any job" in Wanaka on a working holiday visa, but to get a job that's even vaguely tech adjacent here, especially on a WHV, you really have to luck out, and even then it is much lower paid than it would be in the US.

[–] lifestyleguru 2 days ago

NZ is really greener though. Economy is shite everywhere until further notice.

[–] lifestyleguru 2 days ago

Just any relaxed job in NZ will not let you extend the stay beyond 3 months, no? The employers who are employment visa approved are milk-cow-bank-insurance companies very difficult to get into, not to mention the overall crisis right now.

Ah... it's working holiday visa, I never qualify for these...

[–] tavavex 3 days ago

> with so many friends going through the layoff/unemployment cycle and hearing their experiences I've concluded it's much more pragmatic to stay in tech.

If so many of your friends are becoming unemployed, isn't this a sign of things to come? If people keep getting laid off in tech, what is the motivation to stay there if you might be next?

Like you, I'm confused by the dreams people post about working low-paid jobs if they're laid off. If the job market is flooded with tech workers, all these jobs will become even more competitive than before, and wages will fall. If you think your own career in tech is actually in danger (as in, you don't think you have any skills that couldn't be fully automated in the near future), I think the best option is getting some different education to put some barrier of certification between yourself and the rest of the desperate job market. But it should be something that's highly employable and difficult to automate, which is a scope that keeps narrowing.

[–] rayiner 3 days ago

87% of full-time private sector workers have access to employer-subsidized healthcare. On average employers pay 82% of the cost for an individual and 73% of the cost of a family. To use BestBuy as an example: Reddit threads suggest costs range from $100/month (as of 2021) to $250/month (as of 2025).

[–] bluedino 3 days ago

I'm going to guess Best Buy's health insurance (for retail employees) is terrible.

[–] rayiner 3 days ago

According to the reddit threads it seems pretty good.

[–] wallst07 3 days ago

off-topic: Sometimes I feel like applying at Costco as a SWE just to help fix their god awful tech, it's worse than 2000's e-commerce.

/rant

[–] garbawarb 3 days ago

Wouldn't they also get layoff severance? Or was the amount significantly lower than tbe buyout would have been?

[–] toast0 3 days ago

Often, buyouts terms are more generous than layoff terms. Even if the company has a history of generous layoff terms, the next one may be less generous.

The other thing to consider is if you'll want to keep working at the company after so many people have left due to the buyout and the layoff. If not, taking the buyout and looking for a new job is likely to be better for you than not taking the buyout, not getting laid off, and looking for a new job once you conclude you don't like the new environment. For one thing, you'll probably have buyout compensation and new job compensation at the same time; for another, it may be easier to find a new job if you're in the market before the layoffs increase the hiring pool.

[–] fearmerchant 3 days ago

Yeah, I survived several layoff rounds at a company and my workload increased significantly. At first it was fine, even better in some ways to have more responsibility. Then the subsequent layoffs added too much, and we lost a lot of people with institutional knowledge, so I was being handed work with no one to talk to when I had questions.

tl:dr One round of layoffs isn't bad if you're staying, but subsequent rounds can make you miserable.

[–] red-iron-pine 3 days ago

buyouts usually imply a far more generous offer than just termination and severance.

also means they can dodge any NDA / wrongful termination / bad behavior issues on the way out. sign the doc and play nice and get $$$.

keep in mind the US doesn't have great protections in that regard, so "severance" may be them allowing you to collect the last of your crap on the way out and paying you through the end of the week.

[–] -Fu 3 days ago

Ex-softee here, laid off last year after 32 yrs. The current buyout is the same package I got. The recent voluntary package to old-timers a few months ago was also the same with one important distinction - 5 years of COBRA, which would take a 60 yr old to Medicare age.

[–] keoneflick 3 days ago

> 5 years of COBR

I know its very similar to the equivalent amount of cash but it feels a lot different. I feel like half my desire to work is connected to healthcare for the family.

[–] glimshe 3 days ago

Layoff severance isn't great and it's very common for companies to use the performance system to get rid of people. Suddenly someone stops meeting expectations and are gone within weeks.

[–] ergocoder 3 days ago

The first layoff or in this case the first buyout is probably the most generous one.

[–] Twirrim 2 days ago

Much, much less from what I understand.