The Software Developer's Career Handbook

Chapter 23. By Design

I’m at my first startup. We’re between layoff #2 and layoff #3. There’s a new VP of engineering running the show and while he’s been hired with the request to “turn the ship around,” the tech economy is a wreck and his first official act is throwing passengers overboard so we don’t sink.

Now this will be the third (and last) layoff. The existing team of three directors completed the first layoff under the first VP and then the second under the interim VP (the head of business development…another story for another time). In each case, it started with an unexpected meeting late in the day after the executive team had reviewed the latest numbers.

Then the request came: “I’m sure we won’t need to do this, but can you take this here spreadsheet of your team and document how much each of them is devoted to this set of in-flight projects? Take your time.”

Sure.

24 hours passed and they walked into my cube, “Are you done, yet?”

You said take your time…?

“Yeah, I need the information in an hour. It’s critical.”

OK, sure.

Fast forward four weeks, and there are three spreadsheets of our three teams chock-full with information regarding each employee. We are able to use this spreadsheet to understand who is on the team, their capabilities, what products they build, and what those products will contribute to the bottom line.

However, the three spreadsheets are biased. Each of the three directors has carefully built their spreadsheets to demonstrate why the humans on their ...