Can confirm that October is the month of doom. Was told today I have 30 days to apply for open jobs here, if I do not get one, time for me to hit the road, my job has been eliminated. SAS has too many employees at higher levels of too many job roles is what my manager told me. The average age of empkoyees is also too high. Anyone who has been hoping to be promoted to principal, especially if you are over 40 you are out of luck now, it will never happen. If you are laid off your job will be filled with an entry level employee.
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"The stats from this source say "The average software developer age is 39 years old.""
Of course, as sophisticated programmers of complex statistical algorithms we are all aware that simple averages can be quite misleading....especially simple arithmetical averages in a population with essentially a floor at 22 or so that 1/2 to 1/3 of the absolute magnitude of each data point is irrelevant noise! ;)
(I couldn't resist....)
The stats from this source say "The average software developer age is 39 years old."
Source: https://www.zippia.com/software-developer-jobs/demographics/
35 isn’t too old to work in tech — but you may feel over the hill, say software engineers
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/even-35-year-olds-may-feel-ageism-in-tech-google-amazon-engineers.html
Q/A to/from Google:
What is the average age of a software engineer in the US?
You may think that software engineering is a young person's game, but the average age is actually 43.1 years. The most common ages for people in this field are 30 and 34 years of age. Mar 7, 2023
What is the average age of a software engineer at Google?
Median age of Google's workforce is 29 while the median age in the US for programmers is 42.8 years old.
What is the average age of a software engineer at SAS?
SAS Programmer Years Percentages
40+ years 72%
30-40 years 21%
20-30 years 7%
So very sorry to hear this.
I left a few years back and I'm older than you. I worked with a career coach who said that many employers like older workers because they have a better work ethic than many, know how to get things done, and actually show up to work. I don't know how widespread that thinking is or if it's still valid, but maybe it makes things look a little brighter for you. Good luck!
https://www.thelayoff.com/t/143FB8yT
There is the headquarter in Cary NC, there is SAS in the US and there are affiliates in the rest of the world.
In my country two people have been fired both aged 61. No package, no extra pay, just the regulatory 3 month after more than 10 years employed.
What a great company,
Back in July, some mid-50 folks also got the layoff but got the generous package, same as VRBP in 2021/2018. Anyone that got the layoff severance or take the VRBP and signed papers to get them cannot sue SAS (waived the rights). The generous package is the price for not suing. Fair enough! I assume SAS will continue to do this in the months ahead to lower (expensive) headcounts and to get the average age of employees lower to an acceptable number before IPO can take off, if it will even take off. Company has to cut costs somehow if revenue doesn't grow or shrinks.
“These surgical stealth strikes dont feel like "the SAS way". Where is the compassion, and openness SAS is always talking about? It just feels it would be so much more fair and humane to offer packages even if they were the same payout as the layoffs”
Exactly! Regardless of Management competence or lack of, Principal level or not, R&D or not
Speculation about targeting over 50year olds is likely just speculation. The company legal team is simply too smart to expose the company to an easy to prove lawsuit. More likely, the plan is to cull the most expensive employees. Much easier to defend that strategy. Because, there is a ways to go before the books look IPO appealing. If the high salary culling balsonhappens to cull many over 50, that is just an unfortunate coincidence to the bean counters. Recall, the IPO got kicked down the road another year. It went from 2024 to 2025. That gives another year to get the books IPO appealing. Or buyer appealing.
The really ironic angle is this. Think way back when. Had Andre been allowed to fully do his plan to take SAS public, the ballgame today would be way different.
Some Principals at SAS truly deserve their titles but some do not. Some Principals are technically no better than a Senior level but because they're friends and buddies of the managers and have been there a long time so they got promoted without having better skills.
A senior manager even promoted their buddy to Distinguish when the person did not do anything to deserve it and at best technically was only a Senior level but this person has been there a long time and is close friend of the manger.
SAS also promoted someone from one level lower than a Senior, directly to Manager, bypassing other Seniors in the team. How was this even possible but SAS works mysteriously and it really makes no sense.
SAS needs to clean out the dead weights for sure but unfortunately they most often keep the incompetent managers/senior managers/directors/senior directors and occasionally throw out some bad individual contributors but unfortunately also throw out the good ones. It's like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Too many incompetent and lazy people are still thriving at SAS and most of the best and brightest left/retire/quit and some good ones got thrown out with layoffs because SAS doesn't know how to keep the good ones.
Now they target people 50 and over so even if you're a good one you get thrown out with the bathwater! SAS doesn't know how to separate the wheat from the chaff!
Your post is correct and sadly many of the same upper middle level managers/directors countermand the sound design/implementation recommendations of authentically Principal level developers. Consequently not only are these “stale” members of management collecting outsized salaries, they are also contributing to the decline of the company. Let that soak in.
SAS is full of compassion. Think of all the incompetent Directors and Senior Directors that are still employed. Other businesses would have ejected these folks long ago, as their price exceeds their value. SAS is compassionate by providing these folks jobs and allowing them to continue under the guise of "honest work".
These surgical stealth strikes dont feel like "the SAS way". Where is the compassion, and openness SAS is always talking about? It just feels it would be so much more fair and humane to offer packages even if they were the same payout as the layoffs. Its not like these layoffs are only targeting the poor performers. They seem to be base on level and age.
There is an interesting phenomena surrounding the Principal title at SAS.
There were only a handful back in the late 90s relative to the total population of R&D. Because people stay at SAS for a long time, by the mid-2000s that proportion grew significantly. Loyal employees worked hard, had successive years of great reviews, and the company was making money. Being promoted to Principal was often there reward.
There were problems though. The degree of merit required and individual employee competency was inconsistent. If your manager and their up-chain had the right pull, then one could get promoted to Principal base to get all your loyalty, years of service and some consistent period of working hard on a visible initiative.
Then there was the issue of the Principal title in the org chart. In most companies, Principal is the IC level corresponding to a Director in management. In the company I worked at after leaving SAS, a Principal could only report to a Director (i.e. their peer) or above, ideally a Senior Director. The reasons for this are simple. A Principal should have the level of technical influence and authority to set direction and make significant decisions on how the software is engineered and programmed. The expectation is that their technical expertise exceeds that of a Senior Manager or even a Director, who primarily manages. At SAS it is possible for a Principal Dev to report to a Software Manager — someone who is actually two levels below them in the org chart and could have 1/10 or less of their expertise in a particular area of the team is responsible for.
Then there is the visibility/credibility criteria for becoming a Principal. At many West Coast tech companies, you have to be known outside your company, by others in the industry, as a strong technical leader and innovator in order to be promoted to the title internally or be hired into it. It is fair to say that this historically has not been the case at SAS. I have heard more recently that SAS is starting to require things like conference papers and patents as prerequisites for the promotion.
Principal Devs should be responsible for making significant software design decisions and being a solid force for delivering high-quality software on time. The historical problem at SAS is the inconsistency in which the title was given, the widely varying competency level of individuals holding it, and how they were managed. Hopefully this has improved.
When I left SAS two years ago, I believe I found work only due to the pandemic stimulus.
But I was well into my sixties at that time. Fifty-two is not old.
Build your portfolio, use your network, and be prepared to make about a hundred job applications. You can do this!
The 2018 Harvey Nash Technology Survey showed 61% of all technologists over the age of 45 are worried age is limiting their career options.
https://www.techtarget.com/searchsoftwarequality/opinion/Is-there-a-software-developer-age-limit-Apparently-its-45
I only just turned 52. I am trying not to panic. I have 2 kids in college.
Principal dev, you said you felt targeted because of your age... are you between 50-60 or 60 and over? Would you mind telling us your age range? I'm wondering if they're targeting >= 50-something now instead of >= 60 something.
Sorry to hear about your situation. It sure su-ks and is unfair when you work hard and still get canned because of age.
Is this only R&D?
The Art department is safe.
I'm a principal dev and I'm destroyed by this. I never saw it coming. I have always worked very hard, I'm not lazy, I don't take 2 hour lunches, I don't go to the gym for an hour every day. I feel targeted because of my age. This is wrong. If it can happen to me it can happen to anyone so don't think you're safe because you aren't. Thinning of the ranks especially if you are older. Good luck to anyone else who got bad news today.
"Anyone who has been hoping to be promoted to principal, especially if you are over 40 you are out of luck now, it will never happen."
Sorry to hear about your situation.
Regarding promotion to Principal, you are correct from what I've been hearing (didn't hear it in terms of age though, but just in general). It's a shame that HR/upper management won't actually come out and tell the rank and file that that is the new reality. You've got to be the cream of the cream to stand a chance; yet I know folks who are working 30 hours a week and still hoping to be promoted to Principal.
Are you a Principal level that just got the 30-day notice? Are you in development or test?
The 30 days to find an open job bit is the same deal we had with the layoffs earlier this year
"...At least your manager gave you the honest reason, which makes clear that this is not your fault..."
This is an important point.
Many of us behaved professionally and worked hard on projects that, try as we might, went nowhere. We watched our colleagues engage in scads of unprofessional behavior that would get you fired elsewhere. Then management has the audacity to target us in a stealth layoff using a series of laughable trumped up charges. "We don't have layoffs, so this is your fault."
It's an extremely destructive practice. I'll leave it at that.
Sorry this is happening. At least your manager gave you the honest reason, which makes clear that this is not your fault.
If you can't get one of those jobs in 30 days, will they give you a severance package?
I'm going to get one of those Calvin urinating stickers for my truck. I'll replace the target "Chevy" with SAS.
Depending on their education/other experiences coming in, SAS pays entry level employees somewhere between 50 to 60% of what a Principal. In rare cases, a fresh computer science/engineering grad may have better first principles technical thinking skills than a Principal has (I was a long time SAS Principal in R&D and I saw this firsthand). If said entry-level employee is also “hard-core” in the Elon sense, then SAS is getting a bargain. They have a fresh intellectual engine to build from at considerably less cost and likely a higher level of energy and work ethic.
Sorry to hear that. It su-ks to be right sometimes. It's good that you were given the option to apply to open roles. Best of luck on those opportunities.
What's your current job?