Telecom used to be the kind of industry where you could build a career and retire from it, especially for engineers in RF, Systems and Networking. When many of us started out years ago, we accepted that trade-off: other fields might pay more, but telecom offered stability as long as you did your job well and stayed sharp. That sense of security is gone now. With the field clearly in decline, there’s really no reason for engineers to stay, or to encourage the next generation to work hard just to become one.
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@ks All true but sorry this is just a case of me not communicating the question correctly. is there a direct correlation between the depreciation schedule of a capital asset and the number of hands needed to maintain it? forgetting telecom for a second. it could be any capital asset.
I might have taken the original post too literally, that’s all.
@kq Tell me you're not in Telco hardware without telling me directly. Two words: Craft ports. All modern equipment can be remotely accessed and everything but pulling cards or replacing chassis can be done remotely. Previous generations required someone to physically connect to a serial port on each piece of equipment to manage it. Means most functions can be automated.
@kf but that doesn’t explain why fewer people would be required right?
@ke It means equipment is replaced in a few years vs a few careers. New equipment, new command sets, new software, so you are constantly learning and changing. No rote procedures and processes, you have to know quite a bit more.
@ja good faith question here: why does a shorter depreciation schedule mean fewer maintenance hands instead of more?
sorry if the answer is obvious.
@es So you'd trade one layoff for another ? Meta, Amazon and Google have been sheading their over hired overstaffed positions like frog skin on a cheese grater. Notice you havent seen those "tech luxury benefit" tiktoks this past year ? They were all fired.
@OP So? a 5ESS (Thats a Telco Public Telephone Switch Network switch) had a 35 year amortization schedule and could serve 65,000 lines. Those would occupy over 200 racks. When you replace those with higher capacity packet switches that are significantly smaller and can be depreciated in 5-10 years guess what ? Those babysitters can be replaced too with fewer.
@es What year were you RiFed?
So you got 2 months WARN and another 6 months of severance. There is confusion over what the 6 months max is referring to. From what is posted on T-Mobile severance package, it is unclear if the 2 month WARN is part of the 6 month max, or is it two months WARN plus a max of up to 6 months severance?
Yeah, it's annoying because I could have gotten a job at Meta when they were hiring like crazy in 2021. I stuck with TMUS because I had already built up a good spot at the company. Eventually I was laid off a few years later, but I built up enough time for the full six month severance (plus two month WARN).
It was my choice in the end, and I stuck with TMUS because the job felt more secure than big-tech. But at most that only got me one/two more years of high comp employment.
After my TMUS layoff I got a new job at similar salary (but no bonus/RSUs/ESPP). A lot less stress, too. You just gotta take things as they come to you, I guess. I regret nothing.
It would be that way if they weren’t outsourcing all of our jobs. People should have been rioting since 2020. Instead they’ve been taking it lying down.
@ad you can grow and learn and still get laid off. For years hardware engineering was safe. That safety shifted to software. Now many coders are out of work as well. Point made is telecom offered security that a lot of industries did not. Corporate greed has taken over telecom and several other areas in tech. How much is enough for these mfers?
That's just another way of saying you took the easy way. You're stale. You didn't grow and learn. Take advantage of the severance and be glad it's the push that we all need.