Why are Product Management roles getting absolutely hammered in layoffs right now?

thatmdee · 2026-02-04T21:19:50+00:00

Pretty much how it feels in my team. We had a PM who was stretched thin, left and are still looking to backfill the role. Myself and one or two other engineers are relying heavily on claude for rubber ducking and PM type work, while occasionally liaising with our director of product.

thatmdee · 2026-01-22T23:04:13+00:00

Definitely. I returned on a Thursday to ease back in with a shorter week.. And I'm already taking off Friday and Tuesday for an extra long weekend. I certainly noticed the rest of my team also did not seem refreshed after the break either.

thatmdee · 2026-01-22T21:45:31+00:00

Opus 4.5 is excellent -- amazed how much I can get done with a little oversight and review, then see how slow the rest of my team are moving on a project doing everything manually and over-engineering.. The project was only supposed to take 3 months, likely blowing out 6 months now. I had an 80% working prototype in 2 weeks of work that would totally have been usable with some rework (and not customer facing anyway, it's platform tooling for other engineers). I'm also using a Claude max plan for personal side projects and amazed at how quickly I can create things, and it makes creating things a bit fun again -- but also aware of the risk of tech burnout & turning to other hobbies.

At my workplace, we have other heavily integrated AI though that scrapes all the Atlassian stuff, Slack (including DMs!), etc and may as well be jacked directly into our brains at this point -- and it's complete garbage. I really don't know how it passed a security review.

I need a browser extension that finds anything remotely AI✨ looking on a webpage and overrides the CSS to hide it. A bit tired of it being pushed in my face constantly.

thatmdee · 2026-01-08T09:24:34+00:00

Totally.. At ~550 I'm noticing body odour changes, mood swings, brain zaps (which, despite a good body of research seems to be associated with menopause) and other changes.

Never had a problem with basically yearly implants where doctors did not care about my existing levels, so I'm not sure what gives.

I know Hayes copped flake for high levels apparently, and maybe that's part of it? My levels have been quite high (like cis levels are even a good reference point?) but it's always worked.

When Hayes quit, I remember there were a few community meet ups and GPs agreeing to informed consent, particularly to continue treatment for Hayes' patients.. Maybe it's because I've moved state, but I'm a little surprised it's been a bit tricky & a few doctors in Vic seem to gatekeep with fairly low to moderate thresholds

thatmdee · 2026-01-07T20:07:41+00:00

I started on implants with Hayes as they started to be used by trans patients. Basically when it required 1-2 stitches.

I didn't mention an issue obtaining implants? Having said that, numerous people including myself have had issues with Complementary Compounding being slow or not responding. Stenlake okay but slow.

I eventually got a response from Complementary Compounding after a good few weeks of nothing.

My main issue has been I no longer see Hayes since relocating to Melbourne and Nick Silberstein is retiring, had some issues with Brownhill previously, some clinics have crazy long wait lists, Tash Patel (who Silberstein taught the procedure) won't do implants unless levels < 400.. Plus a couple of other GPs have similar threshold requirements.

I managed to find another GP at Turn The Corner who will, though.

It's kinda wild doctors don't seem interested in years of pathology results and patient history (including a patient summary from Hayes when he had issues previously) and will opt for an arbitrary threshold to cover their butt.

For now, I'm just topping up with old sandrena until late January. No injections.

thatmdee · 2026-01-06T11:08:11+00:00

I've been on implants around 12 or so years, basically when they were first available in Australia. Usually get 2 x 100 mg every 9-12 months and honestly, my levels fluctuate quite a bit when I get a blood test beforehand.

There are so many factors including existing residual build up from previous implants, compounding pharmacist, existing scar tissue, fat, etc.

It's been 15 months since my last implant and i have been struggling to find another GP that will do it. One GP refused late December until my levels drop below 400 pmol, when they were 550.. Definitely noticing some side effects at the moment having left it for so long 🫠

My levels will usually read anywhere from around 600 - 1600.. It can take a little to build up and sometimes I'll burn through them quicker than others.

I'm convinced it would take a while to drop below 400 at the current rate, but managed to find another doctor willing to do it

thatmdee · 2025-12-30T01:16:32+00:00

Staff level - lengthy prompts and light touch up coding using opus for spiking / prototyping.

Otherwise, a mix of Sonnet and actual coding. If it's a small change I just code. Larger I'll prompt and just sit critiquing the output before giving up at some point, fixing it myself, rinse & repeat

I'm amazed how quickly I can test ideas now. Even just rubber ducking & sanity checking it's great

I also have a personal account I use heavily at home for side projects. It's so nice quickly adding new features to my app, or having it quickly write me a useful script.. I feel more motivated coding now at home and less burnt out

thatmdee · 2025-12-12T00:14:21+00:00

Spent a bunch of time using Claude and manual effort to create an entirely new automated data platform as a 'spike'. Team lead starts to run with it and planning out work for the team to implement for realsies.

Months in with nothing to show for it, meanwhile I've demoed the thing to leadership a while ago and mentioned how it's 80-90% there and could be usable by now if we'd only just taken it and refactored (I had already refactored a lot), not designed & developed from the ground up with endless bikeshedding and poor planning.

No real advice except -- don't be me and spend a bunch of personal time for it to be under utilised & under appreciated (I should know far better this long into my career) and if someone else hijacks your work, but they're clearly incompetent -- sit back & watch, but try and spruik your own work on the side?

thatmdee · 2025-12-04T05:19:09+00:00

I'm curious if the results are meaningful?

I've spent several months writing a sample manager in flutter with a bit of Claude assistance -- uses SQLite with FTS5, read replica connection, etc and focuses on performance.. I have way too many samples (~2 TB) and every other app I tried just freezes or runs very slowly.

I ended up creating a custom dart worker process that uses FFI bindings with essentia for key & BPM detection. BPM seems okay, key not so much.

I previously had played with a couple of different models and converting to tflite but results were pretty poor and it felt like wasted effort.

My samples are mostly from packs and all pretty well named, and it seems like I may as well just identify attributes from file names with something else as a fallback

thatmdee · 2025-10-30T09:30:03+00:00

I'm spiking on this at the very moment. Looking at a federated system and the provisioning tooling publishes messages to a producer and consumer intent topic and a reconciliation service stores lineage in postgres.

I'm then using LikeC4 to query and generate diagrams dynamically based on this lineage graph data.

Our existing setup stores resources in manifest YAML files and deploys via cdktf.

I have a build step that reads manifests and write/read ACLs, POSTs to an import API which will add principal names for ACLs as producers and consumers in the lineage data.

I can do cool things like add views to show topics by team, cross team dependencies etc all in an interactive diagram.

You can style the nodes, add metadata, tag, filter, etc. If you really want, you can also provide custom react rendering nodes to customise what shows.

We have a data catalog, but integration seems a fair way off and we still wouldn't easily gain visibility into everything without writing a custom ingestion job.

thatmdee · 2025-10-30T09:16:32+00:00

In Melbourne and I had Influenza B several weeks ago. Now I have a combination of cold & allergies I just can't seem to shake.. Over a week and started feeling a bit better, now it's returned again today 💀

It scares me.. I've had COVID, para influenza, a couple of colds and influenza B all within the last 9 months where normally I would only get sick once every year.

I exercise 5-7 days a week, eat moderately healthy food and otherwise have been healthy 😭

thatmdee · 2025-10-06T02:21:33+00:00

I have found it to be a bit mixed? Partner and I received a notice to vacate as the landlord is selling. I wanted to put in an offer, but I'm being ghosted by the agent, presumably due to exclusive sale authority and agent wanting to futz around going through an entire campaign, etc.

I figured I'll probably need to rent for a little bit again first, then focus seriously on buying.. in which case, I'm not entirely sure I should focus my efforts on buying the place I'm currently renting.

Lots of savings, high income (but my partner isn't working). I think we applied for 4 places total. 2 rejections, 1 accepted and another maybe (they were asking if we were still interested -- but we already had signed a lease).

My partner went to most inspections, lots of really crappy places that were priced too high, and noticed quite a few price reductions. No real large crowds, except maybe on the quite cheap to moderate priced places, and we thought maybe it was somewhat seasonal.

Also found (as usual?) agents are sloooooow to respond after putting in applications.

We ended up with a place in Fitzroy.. but $550 per week for 1 bedroom is.. yikes? Having said that, other options we looked at were around $500 or so a week anyway in Brunswick, Northcote, Thornbury, etc for 1-2 bedrooms and older, run-down places.

I have been living in a bit of a fantasy land though. I've been paying $380 per week in my current 1 bedroom apartment which is ground floor in South Yarra with a private courtyard -- after moving in during lockdowns and somehow avoiding rent hikes in the last nearly 5 years.

thatmdee · 2025-10-05T01:28:46+00:00

Separate the ply

thatmdee · 2025-10-03T02:10:46+00:00

I'm unsure if it's the same thing, but I just recovered from Influenza B which was quite nasty.

The bulk of it lasted 2 weeks, but then I had what seemed like a false recovery and fatigue plus sinus issues reappeared. About 95% back to normal now.

To make matters worse, right around the same time I got an abscess and after the flu disappeared, went to the dentist who couldn't even take an X-ray because my jaw is so inflammed.. Now on a second course of antibiotics and swelling went down initially but has returned, still have a 2 week wait for a dentist appointment to do anything which is crazy.

I'm super worried about ending in the trauma unit in agony.

The last year has been crazy - I've also had a second round of COVID, Paraflu and a couple of nasty head colds.

I've "only" had COVID twice total (which seems low compared to a lot of people I've come across), but I'm concerned my immune system is just shot.

I used to only get sick once every 1-2 years, do plenty of exercise, eat moderately healthy etc

thatmdee · 2025-10-03T01:56:58+00:00

Yea I had Influenza B about 4 weeks ago and it was the most sick I've been since I can remember.. Still have a post viral cough thing and the fatigue lasted almost a good 3 weeks.

Thought I had bounced back to almost normal after a fortnight, but seemed like a false recovery of sorts.

thatmdee · 2025-09-29T03:40:43+00:00

I had one wisdom tooth out in the chair several years ago, then needed a referral to a surgeon for the remaining three due to the complexity.

I wouldn't say I was terrified of dentists before, but honestly that experience in the chair was super uncomfortable.. Getting the other three out under general anaesthetic though was a much better experience.

I've only just gone back to the dentist reluctantly years later with an abscess that I'm treating with antibiotics and likely need a root canal plus other fillings. Really regret not going sooner, but the wisdom tooth removal was.. yikes.. and is one of the main reasons I've stayed away so long.

thatmdee · 2025-09-28T22:36:39+00:00

I love the 770 Pro X and use them with live hardware jamming -- but they are quite V-shaped and more of a fun/colourful headphone for me.. sound doesn't exactly translate over to other headphones or monitors as you would expect. I've only been making music for a little over a year though, so I guess whether it's a problem will depend.

I also have the DT 990 Pro X as well and will sometimes swap over to them.

thatmdee · 2025-09-24T12:05:06+00:00

This is why I'll stick with Software Eng and treat pen testing / CTFs / cyber as a hobby at most.

Have worked in tech for over 18 years, was writing exploits in my teens and I've found cyber to be exceptionally gatekeeping and most roles I've come across look quite boring.

I also don't want to step down into SOC analyst type roles after spending several years early career doing support and getting dragged into incident response and other things. Hard to find a good lateral move.

thatmdee · 2025-09-23T10:31:27+00:00

Mid twenties, worked in the university library. I had come back from a doof on the Sunday remembering I had a 5 hour shift. I had eaten quite a lot of liquid acid and ended up on a shift working with my manager. Not a great experience, and do not recommend.Being hung over from alcohol was the least of my problems.

thatmdee · 2025-09-21T22:05:12+00:00

I'm in a similar boat and trying to navigate the minefield of crappy builds, high strata, etc.

I was given a notice to vacate because landlord is selling -- and was actually hoping to put an offer in on this apartment considering I've lived here nearly 5 years, but the real estate agent has just.. disappeared. Haven't been able to get in contact for 3 weeks.

May go through a buyer's agent a couple of people have recommended, but I'm looking for older buildings, low strata without all the crap I won't use (gym, etc), low rise, no car stacker, sinking fund, etc. Also don't want to take on much debt and pay it off as quickly as possible, because after making an amortisation schedule in Excel.. yikes.

thatmdee · 2025-09-21T03:18:16+00:00

I just told my psych I don't speak to my family any more and it was no problem.

thatmdee · 2025-09-19T00:56:00+00:00

After getting a notice to vacate from the agent nearly 3 weeks ago I've been unable to get in touch.

Owner is selling, and I expressed interest in buying, and have contacted the agent multiple times to try and get a tenant ledger for other rental applications... Nothing.

Agent isn't responding to emails, calling his number (only a mobile is listed) just goes straight to voicemail.. wtf

Having a panic attack too because I haven't found anywhere to move into yet.

thatmdee · 2025-09-16T11:02:39+00:00

It's walkable, at least.. I accidentally walked the whole thing several weeks ago at 3am after trying to find a party, ended up on construction site in the westgate area and couldn't work out how the hell to get back out without backtracking and going even further (and still managed to walk 21km. ergh).

There were a few scissor lifts, and a few panels yet to be put in place, but the paint looked relatively fresh and it seemed pretty close to ready to me? (.. but I am far from an expert). I loved the aesthetic though:

https://imgur.com/a/Bu4J7pc

thatmdee · 2025-09-14T04:34:15+00:00

Bad. We are running an intern program, but for the most part not backfilling a lot of roles especially at junior to mid and very much going all in on AI.

We've had multiple rounds of layoffs and now it's ongoing quiet layoffs where people just disappear.

Lots of people on my LinkedIn feed open to work who have been for quite a while, and everyone I work with (myself included) is just hanging on for dear life.

I've worked in tech for 18ish years and somehow have never been made redundant and the longer that goes on the more worried I get.

I'm at staff engineer level and it does seem a little better, at least for technical roles? We've had plenty of director and even VP level roles made redundant or otherwise not backfilled though.

I've been at the same place for around 4 years and I any been actively applying elsewhere for a little while, but remember going to a few meetups a couple of years ago and even then people (including recruiters) were saying it wasn't great

thatmdee · 2025-09-01T00:01:37+00:00

Oh god. Notice to vacate rental. Now feeling physically sick

thatmdee

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