When Pierce Kelleta became a software engineer in Silicon Valley, he was following in his father’s footsteps. His father, Paul Kelleta, is a 36-year-old industry veteran who has worked his way through NASA and Yahoo! And a large number of startups in the Gulf region.
At 24, Pierce landed an enviable engineering position at Meta right out of college. But as the tech industry began shedding employees and rumblings about the recession grew louder, Pearce knew it would only be a matter of time before he left.
“We knew layoffs were coming,” said Pearce. “But being on a higher-performing team and being a really high-performing person, I was very surprised that it happened when it happened.”
By the end of 2024, the coding father-son duo had been laid off by their companies: Paul was a vice president at Mad Mobile, a restaurant software company. Pierce was one of 11,000 Meta employees laid off in November, just four months after Paul lost his managerial position.
“[Mad Mobile] “He ended up getting fired at the same time I was laid off, so we really bonded over that,” Pearce said. “He’s also coming up with some of his own implementations and getting down to the nitty-gritty of the code, so it’s really nice to be able to share that feeling with him.”
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“[My startup team] “Everyone came to the conclusion that this was basically the best thing they could do,” said Pearce, who has since co-founded the startup with fellow stage tech guru Stephen Campbell, who was let go from Airtable in December. to happen”.
About 110,000 technical workers They lost their jobs in 2023 alone. The turmoil in the banking sector and general economic volatility has caused many tech companies to lay off employees left and right.
Kelaitas represents the far-reaching reach of layoffs in the tech industry. Not only does the restructuring effort on fresh graduates or entry-level employees not only affect fresh graduates, but it also ends up being rolled back. Centralized managementincluding senior employees in high-paying positions.
“I don’t think you want a management structure that consists only of managers managing, managing managers, managing managers, managing the people doing the work,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg he said during an internal employee Q&A, according to the Verge.
When he was laid off, Paul Kelleta was an executive at an e-commerce company that had bought a Silicon Valley venture, CAKE Corporation. But as someone who had been with the company for more than a decade, his layoff left a sour taste in his mouth.
“I could see the writing on the wall, at that [Mad Mobile] They were building a team they wanted locally, […] They want to grow within the company with what they already have,” Paul said. “It didn’t really shock me, but it did feel a little negative on my part because I’ve been there basically since 2011 and gone through these different company changes.”
In the nearly nine months since his discharge, Paul has coded and published two apps on the Apple App Store, and is currently enrolled in wine classes from his home in Napa Valley. With a penchant for data analytics, coding, and a good sauvignon blanc, Paul says he hopes to combine his love of wine with his passion for working with small businesses.
“I think about my industry and my circle and I’ve seen this before: people I work with in very high-tech companies doing high-tech things leave later, work for a local mom and – that’s kind of what I was looking for, speaking up,” Paul Keleta said. To different wineries and wine-related companies.”
Liz Lindquester It can be accessed at [email protected]