Saddened by the tech industry

Watching the pendulum swing away from people-centric leadership and wishing pendulums didn't swing quite so far in the other direction.

I hope you enjoy this free Tech and Tea post. If you’d like to support my writing, please consider a paid subscription.

---

I’ve been feeling really disappointed lately about the state of the tech industry.

A year and a half ago, the tech ecosystem of early 2022 seemed like a frantic scramble of job-hopping, with companies offering sky-high salaries, competitive benefits, schedule flexibility, remote work, and more, all to try to win over candidates.

I remember regular news headlines of four-day work-weeks actually being more productive, articles about how to create engaging remote team-building experiences, and tons of content about how to best support employees’ mental health.

It wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies, especially as a seed-stage startup hiring manager trying to compete in the market. I was shocked at engineering candidates with just a few years of experience under their belt, sharing that their target base salary was $180-200k. Um, this is a seed-stage startup, we can’t hit that for your level of experience, best of luck to you. Back in my day (this is exactly what to say to feel old and dated), new grad salaries at Google were $80k and that felt high. But the Great Resignation, plus inflation over 15 years, plus VC funding flowing abundantly… and times had changed.

Peers at other similarly early-stage companies shared that they were bumping all salary bands another 10%, after already doing the same just a few months prior, to keep up with the market and retain engineers.

On the one hand, I was happy to see such a focus on employee engagement and happiness, on excellent people management and coaching and leading people through difficult times being valued skillsets, on remote and async work that gave employees more flexibility in fitting work into their lives.

And on the flip side of things, the rapid inflation of salaries, the rising pressure to job-hop constantly, startups raising tens of millions in seed funding without much to show for it…seemed unsustainable.

—

And so with the ongoing rounds of layoffs from even the most stable and profitable tech companies, the dried up VC funding, it seems like the pendulum has swung the other way, and the inevitable correction has arrived.

I had hoped that a reasonable correction would have held on to the positive things we learned in the past few years. That for many companies, roles, and functions, remote work, with occasional in-person off-sites, is just fine — even better. That giving people flexibility and focus time could create even better outcomes than exhausting commutes and distracting open offices. That happy people who have full lives will also consistently do their best work.

I had hoped that companies would be thoughtful about their return to office policies, that they would handle reductions in force in thoughtful and intentional ways.

The thing about pendulums is that they swing too far in the other direction.

Rather than, you know, finding a moderate and reasonable in-between.

So I’m hearing about VC firms vowing not to fund any remote-only startups because remote “doesn’t work” (when in reality, some tech bros / execs with some influence just didn’t invest in learning how to lead and run teams well in remote settings).

Companies emulating what Elon has done to Twitter.

Cost cutting affecting investments in leadership programs and team-building, because people should just be happy to have a job in this market.

People-centric engineering leadership being devalued because of the sentiment of work doesn’t get done in safe spaces.

Engineering leaders on the job market feeling like they need to use less people-centric language with recruiters to fit into what the market is valuing these days.

—

And I feel sad. It puts a lot of the positives of the past few years into perspective. I would have liked to believe that the industry had shifted its collective values, but the cynic in me now wonders if that was all just to be competitive in the market, not because it was really recognized as a better way to work. Now that companies have more leverage, there’s a feeling of “people should be happy to even have jobs” so let’s cut out all the things we don’t need anymore to retain people.

It feels like finding out that someone was being nice to you not because they were your friend, but because they wanted something from you.

When I started working on Co Leadership back in 2017, a leadership development company for engineering leaders, one of my dreams was to play a meaningful role in making the tech industry a better place to work — for people to be able to show up fully, to build supportive relationships, for work to feel enjoyable. When I made the transition into a VP of Engineering role at Range, I felt like I’d done good work in the engineering leadership development space, and that the tech industry was on a good trajectory.

There was an abundance of efforts in this space, with Calibrate Conference, LeadDev conferences and content, Lara Hogan’s work, and Co Leadership writing and workshops. Companies were investing in leadership development for tech leads and early managers, recognizing the impact these investments would have.

Now I feel somewhat discouraged. I know there is nuance to everything I’m sharing here, and it’s not just all good or all bad. It makes sense that when cost-cutting happens, external programming is often the first to go, and that when team growth slows, there are fewer emerging leaders to support. I know that not all venture capitalists are bad, and that there are still good companies and teams valuing people management and building high-trust teams that people enjoying working on.

But it is unsettling, and to be honest, until now, I’ve somewhat dealt with it by mostly ignoring it. I’m sure I will have more thoughts as I speak to more friends and peers in the coming weeks and months, and as I continue to navigate a career in this industry. I’ll share more here when I have more to share. In the meantime…

The pendulum swings can be very unsettling if you just let yourself be carried along for the ride. If you’re also feeling unsettled and disillusioned by the state of things, some ideas to feel more grounded:

• Get clear on your own values - How do you want to show up? If you’re job searching, how do you want do it in a way that’s true to your values? If you’re hiring, how do you do that in a non-exploitive way?

• Clarify how you want work to fit into your life right now - Is work something that you want to pour yourself into? Or is something that makes it possible for you to do other things that are meaningful to you? How can you make work work for you?

• Find things outside of work that bring you meaning - If your life is all work, and the industry you work in feels like a shit show, that’s a lot to deal with. Finding hobbies and other interests can alleviate the pressure for work to meet so many of your life needs.

My hope is that just because people-centric leadership is not what the industry seems to be valuing these days, that people who believe in it continue to live and breathe it because it’s the right thing to do.

My plan is to do what feels right and aligned with my own values and continue to build high-trust teams with a strong people focus. If at some point the tech industry spits me out, I’ll at least know I did what I felt was right.

To end on slightly more optimistic note, the other thing about pendulums is that they become less extreme the more they swing. Despite many shifts that feel like progress has been lost, I know that remote work is here to stay in a way that was unfathomable 5 years ago, and the many remote-only candidates have far more companies to choose from. People have moved away from city centers or into nearby suburbs and have gotten a taste of WFH flexibility and productivity.

This new generation of remote-savvy people-centric leaders will rise, displace others, and influence the norms. The industry can feel like it takes on a life of its own, but we are all part of it and can influence it too.

And in a weird way, it’s energizing to know that my work here is not done. It’ll take a different form than when I ran workshops teaching alignment-building skills to tech leads and engineering leaders, but through my writing, I hope to make a difference in this growing community.

Feel free to leave a comment with any observations, commiserations, hopes and dreams, and challenges. I’d love to hear from you.

— Jean

P.S. My interview with Luca at Refactoring is live! Check it out — we discuss a lot of similar themes around the direction of the industry, anti-hustle culture sentiments, and more.

Hustling, remote culture, and personal space 🧘