To be fair, maybe the advice was mis-communicated, or maybe the speaker was talking about VC-funded monoliths who had grown too quickly (and hired poorly), but it seems kind of foolish to fire engineers at a tech company, just because you think you "already have a product".
But you should fight very hard to keep talented/experienced engineers around and happy. They very much could become your strategic advantage while everyone is cutting things!
Then again, I believe that a team of three great engineers lightly managed by another engineer (with some management skills) can outproduce a dozen or more mediocre developers managed by an MBA, so I've always planned for our company to produce more code in less time and for less money than our competitors.
--- I fully agree with this. Best managers are the ones that are really strong technically, and that still do some/little coding. They know exactly what's going on, and reward competence over arse-kissing.
Doesn't save money, or time in the long run, especially in engineering. It makes sense only in things like design, logos, etc, but not in your core business.
I would fully recommend to all my competitors to outsource their engineering as much as they can.
In the 90s, I was terrified of outsourcing. It started becoming very popular and there were quite a lot of people declaring the end of the American developer as a result.
Then I found out I was going to be working with an offshore team during a project for a large financial firm. The offshore company that this financial firm was using was reputed to be one of the best in the business.
When the code came back, I was no longer concerned about outsourcing. If anything, there was a whole career to be had resolving the issues in the cut and paste code that got sent back.
Never under-estimate the damage that the language barrier can do to a product.
While it's not always the brightest strategy, it's not always a stupid idea either.