Laid Off After 25 Years in Tech: The Anxiety, Sacrifice, and Reality No One Talks About

Hello world. I'm a software engineer technologist in my mid4s working for big

tech or rather I was one. I was laid off from big tech just about two weeks ago.

This layoff has led me to feel very confused, disoriented, a little bit excited as well.

It's my first layoff um in 25 years of working in the technology business.

So where do we begin with all of this? I

had started working with technology, you know, writing code, building computers doing these sort of things really early in high school. And by the time I was in

college, I already started working right as um not only in in internships but also in in little contracts or gigs

writing little scripts and visual basic applications and these sort of things.

So coming out of college, I worked as a consultant for various digital agencies and those were some very awesome years

right? because I had the chance of

right? because I had the chance of learning new programming languages and frameworks and the world seemed limitless, right?

Like I was one of those guys that you find in bookstores reading like an O'Reilly technical book, learning all of the this code frameworks, platforms, and

I worked really really hard at my craft and tried my absolute best to apply myself, right? trying to learn as much

myself, right? trying to learn as much as possible and and try to do the very best job that I can. For a time, I became very good at software. I felt

like I was very very strong at it and it felt like I could build everything anything I put my mind to.

I got so strong at software development that at the time early in my career, my company would send me specifically to hackathons. And in almost every

hackathons. And in almost every hackathon, myself or the team that I was part of would come out in the top three almost consistently.

And that was pretty wonderful. I I dove into technology into learning languages frameworks, design patterns

understanding the infrastructure of computing and all the wonderful details that's involved in it. Now, one of the

biggest shocks of my early career is the 2008 financial crisis. During that

crisis, I saw that many of my older colleagues, well, many of my older colleagues lost their jobs. And it was

very hard and very much a shock to me to see that happening. Right? There's

people that, you know, I respect, a mentor of mine that that literally was broken down in tears because she

couldn't provide for her family, right?

she lost her position at work and that's very hard for someone to take. At that juncture in 2008 2009 I

take. At that juncture in 2008 2009 I discovered this whole concept of um financial independence right uh there

was this book called your money or your life and that book essentially taught people or at least taught me that there is this concept of of life energy right

where where you're essentially trading your life for money and those concepts

kind kind of got my mindset into one where where you want to live frugally.

You want to live more sort of below your means and then from that you're able to save more to save more money from your job, from your work and then to put that

towards investments. And the end result

towards investments. And the end result is that essentially you're you're using your frugality and your savings to buy

your freedom. the the freedom of your

your freedom. the the freedom of your time from working for corporations.

So that kind of like was a kind of a pivotal moment and it changed my family's behavior. We got way more

family's behavior. We got way more frugal and we did sort of live below our means. So over time my career

means. So over time my career progressed. It sort of blossomed, right?

progressed. It sort of blossomed, right?

I I went from being a developer to being a tech lead of a of a squad of uh developers to being a software or

enterprise architect that is designing higher level software platforms. And eventually that career trajectory led me to becoming a leader within the

organization that I worked in. And I did change jobs a few times right over this 25 year span of time. uh but eventually

I became senior technical leadership at the company that I work for and this career in tech gave me a lot of opportunities as well. So I I was able

to learn all of these things. I was able to work with cutting edge technologies.

It gave me the opportunity to travel around the world. I I traveled throughout North America. I went to Europe. I went to India. And that was an

Europe. I went to India. And that was an amazing experience. This career allowed

amazing experience. This career allowed me to be innovative. I have patents to my name. And probably the most wonderful

my name. And probably the most wonderful thing about tech in general is the people. I can't say enough good things

people. I can't say enough good things about the people that I worked with over these decades. For the most part, the

these decades. For the most part, the vast majority of folks that I worked with have been incredibly smart talented, disciplined, and the

camaraderie and the willingness to work together on a common goal and to build things and make magic happen that I've seen that almost throughout my entire

career. Sure, there there's there's a

career. Sure, there there's there's a few there's always a few bad apples anywhere you go, but for the most part the people

was one of the best things about working as an engineer and as a technologist. Oh

yeah, and one other thing, the money in technology is good, right? So for most of my career, the vast majority of my

career, I earned a six-f figureure salary and that's a decent comfortable salary.

About 7 years ago, I switched from consulting to a big tech company. And

that switch essentially like opened up this massive money faucet where I was getting paid absolutely insane amounts of money. this whole concept of like

of money. this whole concept of like hey, you can get these restricted stock units that that then you can you can sort of vest and then convert into even

more money. It's absolutely absurd how

more money. It's absolutely absurd how much money I was getting paid. And I try to learn from the lessons of 2008 and

2009. So throughout all that, I never

2009. So throughout all that, I never stopped saving and investing. I always

tried my best to live below our means.

Now over the years there have been definite downsides of working in tech for me.

It is a very hard business. I was

working very long hours and because of the globalized geographically distributed nature of this business, teams began to be

distributed across the world in different countries. And that led to not

different countries. And that led to not only long working hours, but also very odd working hours, right? Where you're

up super early in the morning and then you're working super late at night. Tech

is a business that moves fast. There's

constantly new languages, new frameworks, new paradigms that are coming out. And to be relevant in this

coming out. And to be relevant in this industry, you have to constantly be learning. And that constant learning

learning. And that constant learning came easy to me early on in my career.

But certainly within the last 5 years or so, I've noticed that I'm getting slower. It's harder to learn. When

slower. It's harder to learn. When

you're in your mid40s, it just takes a while to learn new things. It takes

longer. I can still do it, but it's taking me longer now. So, all of this time being spent on this work.

And yet over the years I realized that what I was building didn't really make much sense. It felt like

much sense. It felt like we were solving the same problem over and over again. And the solution that I

was helping to create, it never really benefited anything.

these solutions that I was building, it didn't solve the big problems of the world. It didn't make the world a better

world. It didn't make the world a better place to live in. So, it's sort of like you spend all of this time and you spend all of this effort, all this heart to

build things and it doesn't make a difference. That is a real downside of

difference. That is a real downside of this business. So, now we spent all this

this business. So, now we spent all this time, right? I spent all of this time

time, right? I spent all of this time working. That's time then that's taken

working. That's time then that's taken away from other aspects of my life like my family, my wife, my children. For a

matter of years, I had maybe like an hour every weekn night with my kids. I

just just an hour to hang out with them to read to my children, to tuck them into bed and all the rest is spent working planning, taking calls, commuting, and

so on. My son and I, one of the

so on. My son and I, one of the activities that that we really enjoy together is going out on these outdoorsy trips. Sometimes we'll go camping

trips. Sometimes we'll go camping sometimes we're going to go fishing in different places.

And I was thinking to myself that gosh, my boy will be a man pretty soon.

He's a teenager. I only have a couple of years before he's fully grown and then he may not want to hang out with me anymore. It's really kind of rough when

anymore. It's really kind of rough when you think about that, right? that that

this precious time with your family is actually being spent to build things that that in the grand scheme of things

may not matter. Speaking of time there was this really good colleague of mine. This is from a couple of years

mine. This is from a couple of years ago. The man was smart as a whip, an

ago. The man was smart as a whip, an excellent engineer. He worked hard, too.

excellent engineer. He worked hard, too.

And it was around this time of the year right before Christmas, there was this huge digital transformation initiative that that we were both working on. And

this colleague, let's call him Jay, Jay told me that he has a child and he was looking forward to hanging out with his kid. That that finally during Christmas

kid. That that finally during Christmas break he was going to get some time quality time with his kid.

And you know what happened?

We were working super super hard pulling late nighters. And Jay, he got sick. It

late nighters. And Jay, he got sick. It

was some sort of a heart issue. Th this

is a man in his late 40s. And one day he didn't show up for work. We heard that he went to the hospital and then a week

later Jay passed away.

Now, the company I was working with treated him really well. Leadership

spoke well of him. We had a moment of silence for him and it was all good. But

then I realized about a month after this happened, it's almost as if the man didn't exist.

He was entirely forgotten in the workplace. It's as if he had never been.

workplace. It's as if he had never been.

So, so that's pretty rough. Something

that really troubled me in this area happened earlier this year. My wife had a health crisis and from it she became disabled. Well

partially disabled.

in this crisis and the aftermath of it I just realized that tomorrow isn't promised to us that we're we're not

guaranteed to have these good days and good years ahead of us. And so with with sort of like the limited amount of time that we have

it just seems almost not worth it to spend that kind of time with big tech. So yeah over the years these kind of thoughts were

swirling in my head right certainly in the recent couple years but aside from these sort of intrinsic factors there there are practical

exttrinsic factors as well in my industry there's been these macro factors like interest rate changes like the

availability of offshore resources the emergence of AI tools These sort of things dramatically

reduces the incentive for big tech companies to keep their US employees dramatically.

So naturally in the entire sector there has been layoffs, mass layoffs one after the other and my former employer is no different. There were several rounds of

different. There were several rounds of layoffs and in this last one I learned through the grape vines that I was on the list

but there were others that are on the list too. I had an opportunity of saving

list too. I had an opportunity of saving the jobs of several of my more junior colleagues and that's what I decided to do.

I put myself to the top of that list and that's how I got laid off.

That's how I got laid off. Now, my

employer is a very good company. They

gave us an adequate warning period while we were still technically employed, but I could look for jobs outside. and they

gave a very decent severance.

So all of that I have to be thankful to my former employer and and there's no question about it. So that leads me to where we are now.

Basically, I was on a journey with a known destination and now I'm off of that track.

It feels as if I've been dropped into this sort of wilderness, no man's land where there are many different trails and paths forward

but nothing is decided, nothing is concrete.

So, I've been sitting here, it's been 2 weeks since I was laid off, and I was thinking about how do I move forward?

What should I do?

because this is a real inflection point in my life, right? I need to figure out how do I structure a life that is productive, mentally and

physically healthy and wholesome and rich after this event.

And that's pretty much why I'm vlogging myself. I just wanted to document my own

myself. I just wanted to document my own internal thoughts and rants for the future. And maybe I can sort of document

future. And maybe I can sort of document this journey for others who may be in the same boat as me. The future is the undiscovered country. It's unwritten.

undiscovered country. It's unwritten.

I got to figure out and write that story. Anyway, thanks a lot for

story. Anyway, thanks a lot for watching. Talk soon. Bye.

watching. Talk soon. Bye.