Anyone who has worked in the big tech industry knows that probably more than half of the workforce performs tasks that, in essence, are superfluous.
But these things happened: 1) Musk has shown that Twitter can operate with 5% (approximately?) of the workforce he inherited; 2) laying off a lot of people was seen as a sign that the company was in trouble, but not now because; 3) artificial intelligence makes point 2) not a semi-desperate move, but a forward-thinking adjustment to current and future technology development.
I've been out of work for almost a year now, after being laid off, and I think it's very unlikely that I'll ever return (not because of my choice but their choice) to work in the tech industry as a W2 employee. Oh well.
1) This is by any source I can find, incorrect. Twitter had ~8,000 employees when Musk bought it. After layoffs that was trimmed to a low of around 1,500 employees (19%), and today it has around 2,800 employees.
Also worth mentioning that a lot of Twitter's products are built on X.ai which has 1,200 core employees on Grok with 3,000+ on the Datacenter build-out side.
Also if you put a product in maintenance mode you can easily get away with a fraction of your devs. Most people are at all times working on some definition of something new
Also have to consider that it’s now private which removes the pressure of having to show any semblance of a profit or, critically, share usage or advertising statistics which could (and probably are) down dramatically since the acquisition. Being private allows the fictitious storyline to persist that “we’re doing great and everyone is using our products.”
> Musk has shown that Twitter can operate with 5% (approximately?) of the workforce he inherited
Is X profitable? I don't think the argument was that Twitter couldn't _operate_ with 5% of the workforce (i.e. skeleton sysadmin crew), the issue was whether Twitter could make money and remain a viable business.
It seems that Twitter is no longer a viable business (i.e. less advertising spend, decline in users - especially high-value advertiser targets who now spend more time on LinkedIn, etc).
> laying off a lot of people was seen as a sign that the company was in trouble, but not now
I agree that saying you are laying people off because of AI is a lovely narrative for failing companies!
One needs to tease apart the effects of Musk and Musk's "policies" on advertising investments, number of users, the boom and slow decline of social media platforms (see Facebook, Instagram coming down from their peak, TikTok gaining ground, but people seem to be already tired of it and waiting for something new) and the technical/technological part of the enterprise.
I don't like layoffs, in particular when I am the one getting laid off (not at X), but the X experience, for a casual user like me, did not get worse, if it did, because there are way fewer people working at X. One may say, I don't like the algos, but that's not coming from a lack of engineers, it is a policy.
The recommendation algorithm they implement is a choice they make, it is not that if they had more engineers they would deploy a “better” one.
Every recommendation algorithm is, in the end, “bad” in some way.
The TikTok algorithm was considered the non plus ultra among recommendation algos; now you cannot watch a video of a cat on TikTok for more than 5 seconds that the next 50 videos they serve you are of cats.
The Netflix recommendation algorithm has not shown something to me that I considered hidden but interesting in years. They just show you whatever they want to push, mostly (I worked there).
You buy a pan to cook steaks on Amazon and, for some reason, the algorithm recommends to buy it along with stroboscopic lights.
I didn't say they were all working on the algorithm, there were a lot of people working in various content-related jobs: moderation, algorithm, partnership management with content creators, ad sales, and more
Without getting into a she-said/he-said debate, I don't believe traffic is shrinking because of the viability of fewer engineers.
If that were the case, it would also be easy to hire hundreds more. With the confusing mix of X.ai, Grok, and SpaceX, I don't think anyone would notice.
X seems to be much more relevant to social and political debate than any other social media platform, which, despite a declining user base, makes it an extremely valuable tool for Musk and his circle.
It may seem like I'm defending or supporting Musk, but that's not my point. What I can say is that Musk made a huge bet when he substantially, even dramatically, reduced X's workforce, and I think he won that particular bet.
X has added more useful functionality in the last year or two than twitter did in their entire existence, it is also much snappier and reliable, that's with 5% of the workforce. I don't put this down to AI though it's more like a very lean, talented and motivated teams without layers of pointless middle people. Add AI into the mix and it's naturally going to be the way forward. Companies that stay bloated and not utilising AI will die.
Being rejected every day, thus subjecting myself to the humiliating ritual of modern times, by companies that I believe could make the most of my talent (my last title was Director of AI, before I was a Staff ML Scientist at a FAANG and an award-winning scientist).
They all seem rather disappointed, at least in the automated rejection emails (mailboxes not monitored, of course) they send me, that they have found other candidates more suited to the position. It seems we are both disappointed, after all.
Not all is lost, though. I am in the enviable position of having perfect health and decent savings.
Which companies are you applying to? Even in this new world, titles still matter a great deal. A former “director of AI” and FAANG data scientist is valuable even before considering whether you are competent.
The part that stands out is that you are getting rejection emails from automated systems. With your pedigree, you should be talking direct to whoever is hiring — you’ve earned the right to bypass the automated system in the eyes of most people hiring.
When we are hiring and receive hundreds of applications, we only manage to review a few and send the same rejection to everyone else — even though we haven’t read their application.
At a minimum, you should be getting conversations with the teams you are applying to and then a personal rejection. If you are not getting beyond screening, with your credentials, it is a process issue.
Have you tried going direct to the teams? For larger companies, that can be via LinkedIn, and for startups / smaller companies you should be able to find their email.
If I were in your position, I would be identifying companies I want to work at that are hiring, and then send an email to their most senior technical person (probably CTO). You are talking senior-to-senior, and if they are interested, you will bypass the whole automated system. I can think of a couple of companies that regularly post in the HN hiring threads that would be a great fit for you.
Any suggestion that you are too expensive or over qualified sounds like a nice explanation but even if those things are true, you should still be getting interviews and personal rejections. Hiring is a painful process for most companies, the chance to talk to someone qualified is a nice treat.
At first, I was a bit selective about my applications (meaning I was applying to maybe 5 positions per week, not one per month), but in the last six months, I have sent dozens of applications for positions (real or fake, I don't know) that I thought were appropriate for my skills and experience (director, manager, some senior IC positions, not even staff).
I have no problem relocating; I could do so in 15 days (I currently live in California).
I also contacted hiring managers via email and LinkedIn, but I received virtually no response.
At this point, you might think that there is something wrong with me (professionally speaking), that I have a bad reputation of some kind, but that is not the case.
The market is clearly telling me that there is no need for someone with my credentials on paper. Many people find jobs, even quite easily, and millions of people are employed in the tech industry. But thousands of people in the tech industry are also looking for jobs every day and have a stronger network than I do. Either they are looking for you, or they are looking for someone like you, and in the latter case, there are you and hundreds of others.
Have I really tried everything? No, but I've tried a lot.
I want to make it clear that I was presenting my case in response to a question and that this is not a “poor me” post (in fact, I am anonymous and there are no links to my real identity). I am in a privileged position: I have decent savings and can get by for quite a reasonable time, but it is certainly quite disconcerting, disorienting, frustrating, and, frankly, sometimes humiliating not even to get an interview, or a call back.
Thanks for your frank comments. There are a lot of people in your position for the first time, I think, and many more to come. It sounds quite undeserved and is rather a symptom of our poor system. All I can say is I think it's likely that someone like you (who I read as both cognitively and emotionally intelligent) is likely to adapt and will thrive eventually, both due to your characteristics, and because the system isn't that broken, and will also adapt. Good luck, and don't take it personally.
Could it be that these other candidates work for cheaper? They might be scared of your credentials. It's disheartening that this field has come to a race to the bottom, accelerated by AI. It's not the juniors that are at risk, it's the seniors.
This could be a problem, but only if I had interviews or even just a phone call from a recruiter. But I'm not even getting to that stage. I just get rejection after rejection via email for every type of company and position I apply for.
Dozens of rejections, and you get to a point where it becomes a waste of time to even apply. Also, many of the job postings are clearly fake; companies like Capital One, JP Morgan, or NBC, just to name the first three companies that come to my mind, have been advertising the same positions for months, if not years.
What happens is that you fall out of the loop and become invisible, if not an outcast that no one wants to touch. You reach out to your network and you receive cold indifference; all the "friends" you thought you had are not interested in providing any factual support (e.g., strong referrals). Basically, it comes to a point where you are begging for attention and some support.
What's discouraging is that there are so many people in leadership positions who have terrible leadership skills or competence. Not that it's something others should think I possess, I'm clearly biased in this case, but they certainly don't have it.
The world is what it is, and plenty of people get laid off and are able to get interviews and find jobs. I am certainly in part responsible for the situation I am in (not in the sense that I did anything shameful or despicable, in the sense that maybe I should have spent time developing a network different from the one I have), but it is not a fun situation to be in.
Something is obviously very wrong if you're not even getting to the first (zeroth?) stage. It could be something very obvious. Have you tried asking for professional help with your resume / CV?
It may appear so, in the sense that I would think the same if I were the one reading my comments, but, even if I am sure that my resume could be improved (I worked on it multiple times, asked colleagues to have a look, as well as getting some feedback from LLMs), there is nothing obviously wrong with it.
I interviewed dozens of candidates over the years, and I have seen some crazy resumes (10 pages, every technology under the sun listed, dubious certifications). Mine is certainly not one of them.
People talk crap about shareholders on here but in reality, shareholders would hate to know management are rejecting highly qualified candidates for people they can 'manage' better.
Excuse me for making some pretty sharp statements. Twitter is objectively a worse product now. Musk is a deeply uncreative person who doesn't seem to actually like people and attracts people to him that are the same way. This shows in his truly uninspired products. Tesla is way behind the Chinese now. xAI is a copy cat. SpaceX seems to be taking old Soviet ideas. Musk I go on?
I have no professional, personal, or parasocial ties to Musk, so you can safely continue without this having any effect on me beyond a normal conversation, even if contentious.
I would limit the conversation to X, as it is the company that started the famous “you can do the same with 5% (or something like that) of the workforce” movement.
I don't think X is objectively a worse product now, in terms of its technical and technological aspects. This is different from saying that users were better/worse before, and the same goes for the algorithm or the type of information that is “pushed” on the platform.
Let's be honest: people and advertisers left X not because their product was unusable, had a bad UX/UI, etc., but for other non-technical reasons.
But these things happened: 1) Musk has shown that Twitter can operate with 5% (approximately?) of the workforce he inherited; 2) laying off a lot of people was seen as a sign that the company was in trouble, but not now because; 3) artificial intelligence makes point 2) not a semi-desperate move, but a forward-thinking adjustment to current and future technology development.
I've been out of work for almost a year now, after being laid off, and I think it's very unlikely that I'll ever return (not because of my choice but their choice) to work in the tech industry as a W2 employee. Oh well.