How to Lay Off Your Developers the Right Way

It wasn't just THAT he did this or WHAT he said. It was HOW he said it. I feel like I practically know these 3 people already.

You can't make this stuff up.

I don't understand why managers don't do stuff like this more often. Good people are always in demand, and if you must get rid of people, then do it in a way that they'd want to work for you again in a heartbeat.

And not to mention, someone should hire the guy who just posted that listing to Craigslist. Really. That's the kind of guy that you want to wrangle your engineers. (Code Monkey and Geek comments aside).

This is great recruitment tactics if he ever needs to hire in the future. The word of something like that gets around.

I've seen people get culled with a tap on the shoulder and a littany of basic platitudes. Seeing something like this really makes me believe in the decency of people.

Commendable as this is: it's of course a lot easier for employees you think highly of than employees you dislike or with whom things simply didn't work out:

"I'm letting go Bob. Bob is an ok coder, but it didn't really work out with him. Bob is more interested in trying out new tricks than in writing solid, maintainable code. He's also arrogant and won't listen to a word you say, even when you're trying to tell him what the specifications for the project are."

Who'd want to do that?

Wow, this gives me a lot of hope in humanity. I'd be mad/sad if I was fired, but knowing that people are looking out for your ass once they drop you really says something about the integrity of that person.

Kudos to the boss, and I hope the ex-employees find some work. :D

I had a manager write a recommendation for me once. It was an embarrassing mischaracterization, and I never used it, since I couldn't live up to it.

On the other hand, at least I didn't get called a "geek" or "code monkey".

It's certainly a lot better than the result I got when I was told by KeyBank that I was being laid off: "Here's your HR rep. She will work with you to help you find placement within another department."

Little did I know that "She will work with you," means she will never contact you and thus you will be forced to move halfway across the country to find a job that is nowhere near what you used to do. She sure did manage to help me find work in another department, albeit at a different company.

It would be interesting to see if these guys actually get work from this. It's a nice thing to do, but if you're hiring people you still are going to need a lot more information than this.

"they may not survive a long commute"

That makes them sound VERY old and frail. Other than that, nice touch.

I agree: developing a strong relationship with coworkers in every direction is highly important, and this is a stunning example!

That's awesome. I live near Herndon VA and if I was hiring I'd definitely give those guys a look.

This is pretty schmaltzy. Nice, if true.

If a startup is thinking about laying its developpers, it should do it fast. If you're going to make mistakes, make it as fast as possible. However, a startup should always prevent mistakes. Don't hire developers, software engineers, scientists, CEOs, CTOs unless you're sure the person is an evangelist of your business. An early startup should never hire to fire.