One of the defining technology industry trends of the past decade has been the increasing influence of engineers commanding ever-increasing salaries, along with the rapid expansion of large companies and an insatiable appetite for talent.
That dynamic is changing with a wave of layoffs from Amazon, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Salesforce, Facebook parent Meta, and more. For one, recruiters say that the big raises that were once expected when changing careers are becoming a thing of the past.
“This is my theory, this is a way for tech companies to reestablish power,” my colleague and GeekWire co-founder John Cook says on this week’s episode of the GeekWire Podcast.
This is one of the major behind-the-scenes changes resulting from cutbacks at major tech companies, and is the topic of this week’s show.
We also discuss the implications for startups and other businesses who suddenly find themselves in a stronger position to hire engineers and other tech workers.
In addition, we look at a major technology company that has not announced major layoffs (Apple) and point out interesting parallels between Amazon’s and Microsoft’s cuts (hardware).
Here are some of the stories we discuss.
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