Imagine being laid off from big companies such as Meta after basically doing jack shit for months if not years.

Employers are aware of the "day in the.." videos and gonna interview u thoroughly in order to make sure that you are actually competent.

I doubt many of the laid off bunch (especially the incompetent ones) will get an easy pass.

What were they actually doing anyway?

Just don't tell them. Pretend to have been smoking weed in an esoteric hippie commune for some years or whatever and you just came to the conclusion, that only hard honest work and a clear head will lead to real personal growth. If your interviewer is from HR or management, this will work. If it is an actual dev, your backstory doesn't matter anyways.

Those videos make me laugh (or cry if true)

Saw one about Google and he just go around 10am to the 'campus' first thing he does is having breakfast...

Then do some 'work', get lunch and around 4pm goes to the gym...

Oh and he sleeps at a hostel. Like they just cash in as long as it last or what ?

@Grumm He sleeps at a histel because there literally is no available (yes, just available, not affordable) housing in the San Francisco bay area. That is the only area where the coders and managers have to live in trailers too.

@Oktokolo But doesn't that make the image even worse ?

So you work at a S-tier company but cannot afford an apartment. Or is it just temporarily for a few years, then go somewhere else ?

@Grumm probably the latter. Average tenure or a software dev in Google level companies is what maybe 2-3 years. Save enough money to set yourself up with a nice house and quit for a chill well paid job that you can get easily now. Just because u are an ex Google employee you can live life on the easy mode now.

@Grumm Doesn't matter how much you get as long as it isn't more than the competition. There is just not enough housing in that area and absurdly stupid suburbia zoning don't help either.

Apart from going somewhere else after a few years, climbing the ladder obviously solves that too. Because then it is you who can outbid some lower rank on that insanely overpriced appartment...