Tech Job Market is collapsing!! Do these right now!

Big tech companies like Tesla, Netflix and even Microsoft have started their lay-offs and hearing this news as an engineer, might be quite frightening; And on top of that we are heading towards a major recession. So, here are a few things you can do to make yourself recession-proof or even irreplaceable at your current job.

Take more Responsibility

Companies don’t want to lose someone who does their job as if they are working on their own company. Own your work completely, be more accountable, even if something goes wrong, explain why that happened and present a solution on how you are going to fix the problem you have caused. To put in simple terms, do your job as if it is your own company that you are working to build.

Lead business-critical initiatives/projects

In Business, the success is measured in terms of business impact not in terms of the hard work. All work we do as Software engineers are not treated equally. Simply put, some projects are more valuable than others. Some times a 10 minute bug-fix done in production has more impact than a month long feature development. So, is it fully based on luck then ? Not exactly! Projects with high business-impact are usually entrusted by the managers to those who take high responsibility and are more accountable. Make sure you are not only working on it but are leading some part of it, especially if you are a junior engineer and you are not able to lead entire projects.

Market Yourself

Make it your job to market yourself within the company especially the higher management. Make sure that they are aware of the work you are doing and the initiatives/projects that you are leading. Have regular calls with your manager and your director and explain your wins to them. Don’t feel bad about saying the work you did, treat it as if it is a must do. You might have solved a major bug all by yourself without anyone noticing, if you don’t call them out, they will be forgotten eventually.

Be Proactive

Be Proactive, huh ? Now, what do I mean by that ? Chances are the existing systems or practices in your company are not totally perfect or efficient. For example: your team is not automating the operations that it could be, this might be wasting a lot of the engineer’s time that could be put into innovation. So what you can do is explain to your team, Why is that a problem and what is solution to that problem and your roadmap of implementing it. This shows to your team that you are someone who is not only doing their job but also going out of their way to find improvements to the existing systems. This will make you stand-out as an engineer within your team!

Keep Learning

Always keep Learning. Software engineering is such a dynamic field. There are new technologies, new standards coming out frequently always stay on top of the technologies that you work on. Also, be sure to learn new technologies consistently, they open a lot of possibilities for job search if incase an unfortunate lay-off happens. Learning truly keeps you recession-proof! So make learning your habit. My advice: Dedicate at-least 30–60 minutes everyday to learn outside of your daily work. The below graph from the book Atomic Habits which how small everyday improvements can compound into something greater in matter of a year.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” — Mahatma Gandhi

NOTE: You need to remember is that typically lay-offs only affect the bottom 10–20% performing teams of an organisation (of-course, there are other factors). So, always position yourself to be in the top 50% of performers in your company, this will make you being laid-off very less-likely.