Tech Industry job layoffs looking scary

[Silkk]

Job I applied for two years ago just sent me a rejection email

 

[Rick Fox at UNC]

As I've been posting, putting layoffs in the proper context is necessary.

Cutting the fat and making room for talent.

Despite 4 Years of Mass-Layoffs at Alphabet & Amazon, Headcount Rose in 2025, Nearly Flat with Peak, as Hiring Continued | Wolf Street

 

[JT-Money]

 

[Ohene]

I noticed
Finance opportunities were scarce

 

[the bossman]

Again, they hiring out here. Get serious

At the end of the day it comes down to whether or not you have a skill set that is in high demand. If you have a decent network then that's a major help too

 

[null]

For people in the Network Engineering space, here is a quick rundown of how to break into FAANG roles which are basically hybrid software/network engineering roles. If you can build BOTH skills, you will be unstoppable out here. You can bridge into software engineering or move into building massive hyper-scale datacenters around the world.

Pay close attention to the notes of being able to articulate every design decision.

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𝗢𝗡𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗘 𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 (𝘔𝘊𝘘 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵) - code snippets and logic questions

𝗣𝗛𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝟭
𝘐𝘕𝘛𝘌𝘙𝘝𝘐𝘌𝘞 1 - 𝘊𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨
● Array manipulation problem - find pairs that sum to target value
● Binary tree post-order traversal - both recursive and iterative
● Time and space complexity analysis

𝘐𝘕𝘛𝘌𝘙𝘝𝘐𝘌𝘞 2 - 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨
● Layer 2 vs Layer 3 switches
● TCP vs UDP deep dive
● VLAN configuration and trunking protocols
● Spanning Tree Protocol - loop prevention
● Troubleshooting: "Users on VLAN 10 can't reach VLAN 20"
● ARP process step-by-step
● DHCP DORA process
● BGP vs OSPF for datacenters
● IPv4 exhaustion solutions
● Packet walk through multi-VLAN network

𝗙𝗨𝗟𝗟 𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗣 - 𝟱 𝗥𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗦

𝘙𝘖𝘜𝘕𝘋 1 - 𝘊𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨
● Heap-based problem - find k largest elements in stream

𝘙𝘖𝘜𝘕𝘋 2 - 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘋𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘋𝘪𝘷𝘦
● TCP slow start vs congestion avoidance algorithms
● BGP route reflectors and confederation
● DNS cache poisoning and DNSSEC
● DHCP snooping and rogue DHCP prevention
● IPv6 transition: dual-stack vs tunneling vs translation
● Wireshark packet analysis - identify the issue from capture

𝘙𝘖𝘜𝘕𝘋 3 - 𝘚𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘴/𝘓𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘹
● What is a zombie process and how do you kill it?
● Virtual memory vs physical memory management
● Debug high CPU usage using top, htop, strace
● Kernel vs user space networking
● iptables rules for traffic filtering
● systemd vs init.d

𝘙𝘖𝘜𝘕𝘋 4 - 𝘚𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮 𝘋𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯/𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦
"Design Meta's global CDN network."
● Requirements: 3 billion users, <100ms latency
● Network design: BGP anycast vs GeoDNS tradeoffs
● Edge PoP placement strategy - pros/cons
● Peering vs transit decisions
● Load balancing: L4 vs L7 - when to use which
● System aspects: Caching layers, storage tiers
● Had to explain every tradeoff - cost vs performance vs complexity

𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀:
● LeetCode 𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑫 for network engineers - 𝘺𝘦𝘴, 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺!
● System design is 60% networking, 40% systems - know both
● Must articulate pros/cons for 𝘌𝘝𝘌𝘙𝘠 design decision
● Linux systems knowledge non-negotiable

isn't strace (well truss) only going to show system calls. that in an of itself doesn't necessarily tell you what the program is doing.

vs. something like pstack.