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Amazon Layoffs
The king has finally fallen. The titan of industry that commands a workforce of almost 1.5 million has announced that it will be laying off 10,000 employees in both corporate and technology roles. They also alluded to the fact that these layoffs will continue into next year.
But what does this mean for software engineers?
Amazon has long been known as one of the most prolific employers in the tech industry, offering large compensation packages and hiring even larger numbers of new grads each year.
Most engineers view working at the rainforest company as a trade — good pay and a resume boost for what’s generally considered a not-so-good work-life balance. Although this is heavily team-dependent and many engineers don’t mind working at Amazon, unless they’re on one of the “famous” products like EC2, Alexa, or Aurora.
Work-life balance aside, many engineers in entry-level roles will now potentially be having a much harder time finding a job. Moreover, what does this signal about the rest of the industry?
As we talked about in the last issue, many companies are taking time to shore up their balance sheet and improve their cash flow due to the recession that most people agree we’re entering. With one of the largest employers of software engineers (around 35,000) freezing their hiring and announcing ongoing layoffs, strong signals are being sent to other founders and organizations that this is the time to be trimming the fat and making any sacrifice you need to keep your company healthy.
As such, it’s important to not overextend yourself in terms of lifestyle inflation, peace of mind, or otherwise, since job security cannot be guaranteed anywhere.
Twitter Unbans
Elon’s Twitter reign continues with some notable developments — influencers Donald Trump, Andrew Tate, and the Babylon Bee, among other accounts, have had their access restored to the platform. While this has come as a shock to many, is it really so surprising that Musk’s “freedom of speech” platform has decided to bring back controversially banned users?
In the case of Trump, Elon held a Twitter poll to see whether users of the platform preferred that he stay banned, or be allowed to regain access to his followers. As seen above, a close poll showed that 52% of users who answered prefer that Trump be reinstated.
When I see this, an obvious flaw comes to mind. 15 million of Twitter’s over 300 million users answered this poll. This means that less than 5% of the platform as a whole voted, almost half of which answered “No”. So then, around 2.5% of Twitter’s users wanted Trump to be back on and active.
When I read this, I can’t help but think — is there a better way to handle edge cases like this? Is there a clear “line in the sand” that we as a society should not cross when it comes to preserving free speech?
As software developers and business-minded professionals that drive this world forward, these are ideas we should all be discussing and forming our own perspectives on.
Indie product of the week
This week’s featured indie product is HabitsGarden. When I saw this product, I was instantly drawn to it based on a few of the key features that I’ve never seen in the world of productivity apps.
First off, the habit frequency visualization in the bottom left hand of the image makes me feel extremely comfortable as a developer, since it is a feature pulled from GitHub, where it’s used to track how often you make commits to a codebase. I think that this visual makes sense and is truly a huge help in seeing when you’re starting to lapse on a habit that’s important to you, giving you the signal to make a change.
Moreover, the ability to plant and grow a garden using rewards from checking off habits feels like a unique and satisfying implementation of gamifying habit completion. I’m vaguely reminded of the farming games I played as a child, along with apps like Flora and Habitica that were formative in the development of my ability to focus. I look forward to seeing what HabitsGarden grows into, as it takes a unique avenue through the world of productivity apps.
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