The truth about Tech sector redundancies

In the face of an uncertain global economy and slowing revenue growth, 2023 has seen Tech giants including IBM, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP, Amazon, and Meta as well as numerous smaller technology companies, announce redundancies.  

Tech redundancies and their effect on software development teams were one of the topics covered at Corecom’s latest DevBoss event, held last month in Leeds. Our theme was ‘How to do more with less’; a nod to the sweeping redundancies and how software development teams have been affected. Redundancies are never an easy decision for any organisation, and they are often made for sound reasons, to guarantee the long-term health of the business. The discussion at DevBoss focussed on the effect on software development teams of these decisions, and how developers can adapt and thrive. Here’s a summary of our discussion on the night!

When job cuts are made, teams will usually need to; 

• narrow the scope of work  
• take on fewer projects 
• focus on short-term profitability  

When making redundancies, organisations will typically let their agencies and contractors go in the initial stages, given that they are relatively easy to eliminate. Often, they do this without considering the initial purpose they bought for the organisation. This purpose was not usually just about additional ‘hands on keyboards’; businesses bring people in for their experience, including:  

• Inspiration: new role models  
• Raise the game: auto-discovery 
• Inception: to start a new project  
• Change: fresh thinking and new direction  

So, if those people and skills are no longer there:

1. How do things work?
2. How do things get done?
3. What else is cut?

Often the job roles within the organisation that support growth (short-term wins over long-term growth), commonly software engineering managers and people who are not directly contributing code are the roles that can be first to be let go.  

A shift of focus 

Following the job cuts mentioned above, employers can often adopt near-sighted decision-making owing to inadequate customer feedback loops. The organisation is ‘keeping its head above water, versus trying to find land.’  

From a strategic point of view, a software development team should align with its value stream and how they are delivering for the business’s customers. Commonly when making cuts, this is dismissed and the focus shifts to short-term bets with very little:  

• discovery  
• experimentation  
• data-informed decision making  

Then, with a smaller team comes increased concerns around cognitive loads.  

What is cognitive load? 

Cognitive load, put simply, is your working memory at any one time. A software developer in a team, for example, might be working on a logistical problem. If more tasks are added to the individual following redundancies, that developer will reach a cognitive load limit where they cannot properly think about the problem anymore. Expand this across the team and we can see how this provides a barrier and presents challenges to progress. 

‘Who is left’ versus ‘who is remaining’ 

Typically, after the changes wrought by redundancy, the career progression of remaining team members becomes somewhat skewed. Naturally, many team members will object to what is happening and potentially find a new job. The result of this is employees being plunged into roles where they lack experience (and may not want to do) to fill the gaps. So, the effective people leave and those who are remaining are promoted. This can cause the following:  

• Promoting those who are left can present challenges when attempting to role model behaviours at a senior level.  
• Innovation can become siloed with a lack of diverse perspectives, as the decision making takes place with a reduced group.  

 This point was raised at DevBoss by one of our speakers for the evening;  

In summary, redundancy is tough on everyone and the fall-out sits not just with the affected employees, but with those left behind too. How can software teams do more with less? A sharp focus on how to deliver for the customer, the team’s value stream, how to add value and utilise tools that deliver efficiencies were the main takeouts from the discussion. 

Thank you to everyone who attended this year’s DevBoss. There is a highlights video from the night below.

If you want to know more about the Dev team at Corecom, our vacancies, and the clients we work with, get in touch with Tom Long here, or take a look at our open roles here.