Another day, another news about layoffs in Twitter. As reported by journalists Alex Heath Y Zoe Schiffer, about 50 developers were fired last night through an email. The company’s justification was that your code “was not satisfactory”in an expression with the stamp of Elon Musk.
The abrupt decision has been like a bucket of ice water for the affected engineers, considering how and when it was announced. Let’s keep in mind that today is Thanksgiving, one of the most important holidays in the United States, and surely no one expected news of this caliber.
As has happened on previous occasions, the e-mail has not been signed by Elon Musk or any of his sides on Twitter. However, the text seems to be taken from the tycoon’s script. “As a result of the recent code review exercise, your code has been determined to be unsatisfactory, and we regret to inform you that your employment with Twitter has been terminated effective immediately,” the message reads.
But this has not been all. Schiffer mentions that, beyond layoffs, dozens of other engineers have received a warning email. It exposed the company’s concern about the “quality of their coding ability,” and threatened to terminate their employment if they did not make efforts to “regain the trust” of their employers.
“The purpose of this written performance advisory is to draw your attention to our concern regarding the quality of your ability to write code, and to define for you the severity of the situation, so that you can take immediate corrective action. Please note that failure to meet expectations could result in termination of your employment. Take this opportunity to restore our trust and demonstrate your contributions to the team and the company.”
Warning email from Twitter to your engineers.
Elon Musk and extreme pressure on Twitter developers
The new layoffs on Twitter turn on the alarms again about the climate that the company has experienced since Elon Musk took control. Let’s not forget that these developers—like the ones now under threat—not only survived the mass layoffs that cut the workforce in half, but also they accepted the ultimatum of the new owner of the company to adopt a work culture hard core.
The latter had already cost him the resignation of hundreds of employees, and a crisis that put the company on the brink of collapse. To the point that, last Friday, Elon Musk had to summon the remaining engineers to an emergency meeting. Although not without some prior requirements.
“Anyone who can actually write software, please report to the 10th floor today at 2 pm Before you do, email me a detailed summary of what your code has achieved in the last 6 months,” the mogul had requested. , along with 10 screenshots of its “highlighted lines of code”.
The truth is that, despite the promise to have ended layoffs, Nobody knows how far the new owner of Twitter will go. In fact, this week it became known that developers will be required to report to Elon Musk on a weekly basis. To do this, they must send an e-mail every Friday detailing which projects they are working on, their relevance and the fragments of the code in question.
As for the employees fired in the last hours, the compensation would be much less than that received by other workers. According to Alex Heath, Twitter is offering them 4 weeks pay in exchange for them signing a separation agreement and a release from charges, to avoid future lawsuits.