Local Minimum

Well, it’s been a little while since I’ve been back here writing, but been wanting to get some of these thoughts just for my own posterity if nothing else.

The original title for this post was “Rock. Bottom.”, an homage to SpongeBob taking an unexpected bus trip to where else? But I felt that was a little dramatic, despite how it felt at the time.

A gut punch

About ten months ago I was laid off. I’ve been lucky enough to not have too many terrible days in my life that I can remember, but this one is definitely up there.

I remember it like it was yesterday. A Thursday. My son had been born barely a month prior. My mother-in-law had passed not 10 days ago. We had been through a tumultuous spring and summer after my wife was rear-ended during her third trimester. We were driving home from the park after finally feeling like things would settle down.

A “Team Sync” had been conditionally put on my calendar for 30 mins from now, with the CEO as the meeting organizer. Since I was on paternity leave, I messaged him saying as such, but I could jump on if urgent. Turns out, it was urgent, but it wouldn’t get that far. A nice woman from Human Resources called to inform me of the news. I’d been laid off.

I immediately launched into protest. “I’m on paternity leave! Is that even legal?!”
“It’s legal so long as it’s a mass firing,” she calmly replied. My heart sank. My wife and kids were in the car with me, listening to their dad lose his job.

It took a day or two for everyone to get an alumni discord together, but it turns out that 75%+ of engineering had been laid off in a shock move to all of us. We’d been told 4 months prior that no further layoffs were planned after a 15% RIF.

We had to go home so that I could go absorb what had just happened. I went from being gainfully employed to seriously worried about paying bills in a literal instant. Sure we could have liquidated investments if needed, so maybe all my stress was ultimately unwarranted, but that’s not really a course of action that you want to take.

It’s obviously hard to not fixate on anything but what had just happened. I was nearly silent at dinner if memory serves. Bedtime with the kids was a blur. (Parenting generally feels like a blur sometimes, so maybe this isn’t earth-shattering) But I eventually went to bed and boy was sleep the most impossible thing to come by for the next week. Considering my newborn was hardly a month old, this probably just compounded how bad everything felt at the time.

I toiled in bed, tossing and turning, combing over LinkedIn job postings I might be suited for, mentally re-calculating our runway (long enough to find a job, but not forever with 4 mouths to feed at home).

This was in the midst of a year-long cycle of layoffs in the tech industry, and there was a flood of candidates far more capable for every job that was seemingly out there. It was not going to be easy or pretty.

The next week was surreal. I’d start the day, trying to hang out with my kids and keep to some sembelence of routine - make breakfast, play some outside, take the dog for a walk - but inside stress and anxiety loomed large. What would happen if I couldn’t get a job? How long could we last? What would I say to my wife? How would I explain to my kids if the worst would happen.

Some leads came through in the next few days and into the following week. Nothing hugely promising, but jobs nonetheless. I was preparing for a slog. It was tough out there. Seemed like everywhere that expressed some interest could work out, but when you just want to know that you have A job, having to have the same conversation with recruiters over and over again, explaining what you’re good/bad at, why you’re on the market, what you’re looking for, etc. just becomes exhausting, rather than invigorating as a job search can be when you’re in control.

Days were spent leet-coding, pretending to my kids that everything was okay, taking the youngest for walking naps, and then back to leet-coding, interview prep, or side project building. Anything and everything to keep sharp or have something to show for myself. Focusing on my own health became a luxury. It’s all work all the time when you’re job hunting with kids at home. Sleep was terrible. No exercise or time to reflect. Pedal to the metal, because that was the only thing I knew how to do. Work every waking minute that could be spared on getting a job.

They don’t tell you how much responsibility comes with being a parent, and maybe specifically a dad when you’re the sole income earner, but boy do you feel the weight of it when you don’t have a job. All of a sudden you have an all-consuming purpose in life: put food on the table and keep the roof over the heads.

[!IMPORTANT]I’m probably being a silly goose It’s not lost on me that I’m probably sounding all too dramatic in this stupid essay 10 months later, talking about how dire the straits were when I still had 8+ weeks of runway, investments I could fall back on, and plenty of family nearby if worst came to worst. But I don’t think I’ve ever felt a fight or flight like response so strong in my life. The fatherly urge to ensure your clan is taken care of can’t be overstated when you’re no longer in control is like nothing else I’ve experienced.

Just a fool’s hope

After 4 or 5 business days, a former co-worker connected. His firm was hiring. Despite plenty of initial phone calls with recruiters and hiring managers, nothing had really panned out yet, so having my foot in the door at a place, even if I hadn’t heard of them was a relief.

The interview process was expedited, though as it turns out that’s just how they roll with everything they do. 4 interviews in 2 days - a senior engineer, a director of software engineering, and chief engineer, followed by an HR phone call as well.

To this day I don’t think I nailed any of them. I was fraziled, sleep deprived, and probably having low key panic/anxiety moments at least once a day. But somehow I talked my way through to a final round call with the CEO, I guess convincing people I knew what I was doing. Fake it till you make it am I right? I was fortunate to have the support of the internal referral, and some of his guidance along the way. (If you’re reading this, Matt, you single-handedly changed the trajectory of my life and my family’s)

For all my melodramatics about how hard this period was, and it was, the interview process with Dfinitiv was so quick and smooth that I really have no place to sit here and ramble and complain. I didn’t have to code, I just had to talk and not seem like an idiot.

Thankfully, they saw something in me. Hardly know what it was at the time, but I’d like to think I’ve pulled my weight since being brought on.

Relief

To my genuine surprise, within 8 days I found myself with an offer in hand. Much sooner than I expected, and again, not really that long that I deserve to write some long ass blog post about how hard it was. But it felt hard. Felt hard as fuck. And scary. I was 31 years old with 2 kids, a wife and a mortgage we’d maybe over-extended ourselves into.

I cried when I was on the phone with HR when I got the news. Don’t cry much these days, but the weight of the world (my world, at least) had been lifted. I knew we wouldn’t be homeless. I knew I wouldn’t have to tell my kids we couldn’t afford necessities and we wouldn’t have to move in with Pop-Pop. I called my parents and brother to tell them the news, still in shock of the miracle/life-line that was thrown my way.

Reflection

It was short but stressful, but dammit if I’m ever going to look down on folks who have lost their jobs again. I’d worked hard at my previous gig, just like countless others, but it was out of our control. But it also reinforced some things to me about putting myself in a position to not go through this again.

1. Be useful. I’m not the best engineer at this new place, I’m middle of the road at best. Frankly everyone there is a top notch guy or gal, but there’s no resting on laurels - from me or anyone.

   Ship shit. Provide value. Build things that move the business. Be irreplacable. Or at least work hard enough that they’d have to really be in a bad spot to get rid of you.

2. Diversify. I’ve never been the kind of guy that ships a profitable side project, but I’ve started to take the prospect more seriously so that funds don’t run dry if stuff doesn’t go to plan, and you can always lean into that full time if you needed to. It’s hard to do with the workload of a fulltime job with 2 energizer-bunny kids, but a few sleepless nights here and there to ensure you’ve got cash coming in is probably worth it.

3. Network network network Follows on point 1, but if you work hard and are good at your craft, others will go to bat for you if they can help you. I’m hopeful to not find myself in this position again, but I’m even willing to pay it forward for someone else that’s shown they care about their work than I was before.

4. Keep an emergency fund, more than you think you need. Our savings account was far too dry for someone with 2 kids. I’m now trying to keep 4 full months worth of an E-fund, even if it pains me to not have it in the market making money.

I try to steer clear of click-baity listicles, but I’ve wanted to get these out for some time. I could list 10 more silly things about “What getting fired taught me about B2B sales” or some stupid LinkedIn engagement-bait post, but I’ll try to keep it to that.

Dfinitiv

Not a day goes by I don’t think about how lucky I am to be where I am. Learning under a pair of co-founders with 3 successful exits (batting 1.000) and a top-notch team of people who care just as much as I do about doing good work. No more lazy contractors. Everyone rowing in the same direction. The floor is just so much higher here. We don’t do ceremonies. Just a standup and get going with your work. We’re trusted to do our best work and management gets out of our way. Better yet they actively support us.

Turns out, when everyone you hire is good, you don’t need to micro-manage. You just ideate, get code written, shipped and iterate. That’s literally it. WHO KNEW.

That’s all folks?

Thanks for listening dear reader. There was no real point to any of this post, except to get some of these thoughts out of my brain and onto paper. Seriously this may be one of my dumbest blog posts ever. But if you happen to come across this and lost your job, hang in there mate. It sucks, but you will get through it. And once you’re through to the other side, see who else you can throw a rope to. It’s a big industry, but it’s not that big. A little generousity and hard work goes a long way to helping make sure others are willing to help you when the time comes. You can be prepared on your own, but as a half-decent rock band once said,

“I get by with a little help from my friends”