Confirmed

I’m on the hiring committee at my company for a senior position (5-8 YOE). We’ve been struggling to find the right fit - candidates either have great technical ability but subpar communication skills or vice-versa. With all of the layoffs, we’ve been starting to target those who have announced they were affected on social media. I interviewed one of those candidates recently. This person was smart, eloquent, and sufficiently capable for the role. Taken as a “whole package”, they blow all of the other candidates we’ve interviewed out of the water. Additionally, this person recently relocated to one of the main tech hubs specifically for their previous role and seems understandably eager to find a new job. I suspect that our mutual interests will align and we’ll hire this person. I’ve seen a good amount of conjecture in the community that this shift might occur, so I thought it would be valuable to confirm that yes, recently-laid off employees from large tech firms are likely to temporarily make it somewhat harder for others to find a job. (Source: Me. N = 1. Your mileage may vary. Best of luck to everyone!) --- UPDATE (in the interest of transparency) - 12 hours after initial post creation I performed an interview today with another candidate that was laid off recently from Big Tech. This candidate talked a big game and impressed me with nice answers to my open-ended questions. However, they couldn't solve our straightforward coding exercise. (This exercise is not "LeetCode" in the slightest; it's actually very similar to day-to-day development work) I think these two candidates embody the sentiment expressed by a lot of you in the comments - Some of the laid off candidates will be truly fantastic while others are just good at interviewing and not at actually being software engineers. So, I suppose the takeaway is that although the job hunt might be a little more difficult in the short-term, it's definitely not a lost cause. If you're good at what you do, you'll be able to land a job. You've got this; I'm rooting for you! :)