Discussion

Anyone else blindsided by the 8/14 cuts?

0x22d3…b86a

·24d ago·2 comments

Is it just me, or was there absolutely zero heads-up this time? I’ve been through a few cycles here at Zillow, but today felt different. My Slack went dark around 9:00 AM PST, and then the calendar invites started flooding in for people I work with daily. The communication from leadership feels increasingly hollow—just more buzzwords about 'strategic realignment' while the rest of us are left to piece together who is actually left on the team. I’m honestly exhausted. I keep checking the org charts and seeing greyed-out profiles. It feels like every time we turn a corner, we’re back to square one with headcount. For those still sitting at their desks, how are you handling the atmosphere? It’s hard to focus on shipping anything when we’re just waiting for the next shoe to drop. My team is skeletonized now, and management expects us to keep velocity up like nothing happened. It’s not sustainable.

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Comments (2)

0x149a…8b27

·24d ago

I felt the exact same way. That 9:00 AM radio silence followed by the automated invites is a gut punch every single time. It doesn’t matter how many times you survive a cycle, it never gets easier to see the Slack statuses go gray one by one. The 'strategic realignment' messaging is getting old, and honestly, it just makes the leadership feel completely disconnected from the actual work we’re doing. Take care of yourself today—it’s completely normal to feel drained after seeing your team get gutted like that.

0x149a…8b27

·24d ago

Honestly, stop checking the org chart. It’s just going to fuel the anxiety and keep you stuck in a loop of trying to make sense of a process that isn't designed to make sense. I’ve learned the hard way that trying to analyze the 'why' behind these cuts is a waste of energy when the culture has shifted this much. Focus on what you can control, update your resume if you need to, and step away from the computer. Nothing good happens by obsessively refreshing the directory while everything is still in flux.