When a company does a layoff like SoFi did on Jan 9th, 2024, it's pretty insensitive to invite impacted employees to a webinar style zoom room where leaders of the company CLEARLY read from a script. There was absolutely no empathy or care and people who were in the office were asked to gather their things and exit immediately. I know several people who never heard from their direct manager following. Can you imagine talking to your manager every day for years and then being invited to a 15 min zoom call with basically a stranger who tells you your role is eliminated and your access being terminated momentarily? With no reach out from your direct manager who knows the names of your spouse and children?
Layoffs are going to happen but it's HOW a company handles these things that determines if folks should be concerned for the future or not. They dangle some pretty progressive benefits in front of you but what you ultimately get is a mediocre team with tons of middle management who all think they're in charge and obviously zero care about just cutting hundreds of people with no explanation other than 'scaling people and processes'.
This is overall an insanely stressful place to work. Even when you have a supportive manager, it is a lot of "high priority" busy work that a lot of times gets pushed aside when priorities change and make very little impact. The teams change body of work and structure often and so what you are hired to do is most likely different by 4 months into your job. You can be left with a lot of unclear priorities that ultimately don't matter.
Nobody actually cares about work life balance so if you want it- it's possible but you have to set a ton of boundaries. Even when your manager tells you it's okay to take time off, the work will always be more important and you'll never feel like you can actually disconnect.
