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The people making the cutting decisions are also a removed from individual IC level visibility. These cuts are often done based on financial metrics per product line.

You could be an amazing engineer and have a well engineered product, but still get laid off because the product didn't get market traction.

I've been on both sides of the equation. It sucks but such is life sadly.

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And ability doesn't fit in the spreadsheet they use to calculate their target profitability.

They are going to cut expenses by 40% and increase costs of their products by 20%.

That is the point of lay offs. They are not saying you are bad they are saying they don't need someone in your position.

sometimes a company will let managers in a different department that is hiring know about coming lay offs and ask/force them to take good people. this is rare though.

> sometimes a company will let managers in a different department that is hiring know about coming lay offs and ask/force them to take good people. this is rare though.

Depends on the kind of layoff. If it's strategic M&A related this happens fairly often. If it's purely a cost cutting hail mary, then not as much.

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