Shadowing Practice: Laid Off After 4 Months as a Software Engineer - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Last year in May, I was wiped up by the 5% mass layoffs from CrowdStrike after just four months of working there.
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Last year in May, I was wiped up by the 5% mass layoffs from CrowdStrike after just four months of working there.
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And the whole experience was pretty insane.
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I had just joined the weekly team meeting at 8.30 a.m.
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There were quite a few people missing,
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and then also everybody looked like they were about to cry.
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And so immediately I was like,
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oh man, what's going on?
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I checked my Outlook email,
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and then I saw the calendar,
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had an invite for the VP of engineering at like,
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I forget what time it was,
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or sometime in the morning.
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And yeah, obviously as a software engineer level one,
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you're never meeting with the VP of engineering for a good reason.
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And so I immediately knew something bad had happened.
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I'm sure some of you have experienced this before,
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but when I saw that calendar invite appear on my Outlook,
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I just remember my heart rate like absolutely skyrocketing.
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That is the most stress I've ever been in my whole life.
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Like nothing can even compare to that,
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like no testing college, no, nothing like that.
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So my heartbeat was just going insane.
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It felt like I couldn't really hear anything.
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I just felt this complete sense of like dread and doom
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and like just yeah just complete devastation
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because it felt like what I had been working for all those years in college
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and then you know leaving my prior job after just one
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year being there to get to this point it just felt like all
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that had just come crashing down within you know just two minutes of joining the meeting.
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So I messaged my manager who was in the Zoom meeting and I said hey check out this calendar invite
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looks like I'm getting laid off.
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He said, send me a screenshot.
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I sent it over.
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And then he basically said,
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yeah, that's what it looks like.
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Let me know if you want to hop on Zoom and discuss.
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The Zoom meeting with my manager was pretty short.
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It basically just consisted of him telling me,
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you know, sorry, this is happening.
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And then I asked, was there anything I could have done to secure my spot or made a difference in this decision?
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And he basically said, no,
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you know, I've only been there four months.
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It's not like I could work on something high impact.
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I had pretty much just finished onboarding,
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especially as a software engineer level one.
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and my feedback on the team so far has been great.
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So after the meeting with my manager,
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I pretty much just had to sit
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and wait for a little bit until the actual meeting with the VP of engineering was going to start,
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AKA layoff time.
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And so when that started, it was pretty weird.
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I thought I was going to have a chance to talk to HR,
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maybe ask to be repositioned within the org or something along those lines,
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but that was not the case basically all 500 of us got dumped into a Zoom webinar so we couldn't even chat,
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no reactions, no one-on-one contact obviously because they're laying off so many people at one time.
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And so the VP of engineering was there with whoever from HR was there.
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Together they basically told us you know,
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effective immediately you're being laid off.
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Thank you and there's nothing else to really say so let's end the meeting here.
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And I don't know if any of you guys have watched Succession
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but it really reminded me of when Greg laid off like an entire team at ATN.
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Not sure if you guys get that reference,
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but that's really what it felt like in that moment.
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It was almost so bad it was comical.
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So I messaged one of my friends on the team that I talked to the most and I said,
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hey this is what's going on and being laid off and he was like, no way.
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And we were doing a little bit of communication.
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I got his phone number just as a contact and then right as I was messaging him to say,
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hey could you see my LinkedIn and the Slack channel,
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my computer went black, everything shut down
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and my laptop was basically completely bricked within like two minutes of the 500 person webinar meeting.
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So then I had to text message him and say,
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you know, hey, I just got locked out of my computer.
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Could you send my LinkedIn in the Slack channel,
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which luckily I was working on a pretty large team.
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So it hit a lot of people and he agreed.
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Once my LinkedIn got posted in that channel,
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a lot of people reached out,
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which was really nice to see.
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Basically some of them were just saying,
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you know, so sorry, this happened, doesn't make any sense.
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And then others were saying,
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you know, I'll reach out on my network and see
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if there's any job openings I can find for you or refer you to anything.
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So I'm super grateful to everybody who reached out to me
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and especially the person who sent my LinkedIn in the channel for me after getting locked out.
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And I was super lucky that somebody senior on the team reached out to me and said,
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hey, so sorry this happened, doesn't make any sense.
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I have a friend who has a startup and,
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you know, let me know if you'd be interested in that position.
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I obviously said yes immediately.
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I said, let me send you my resume,
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my information, and you can forward this over to them and they can get in touch with me.
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One thing I want to note here before I keep going on about the layoff experience is
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that I was extremely lucky in my position when I got laid off.
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Not only did I get referred to that startup,
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which I did end up working for and I'm still working for now part-time,
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I also had another AI startup that I was already talking to that I was able to fall back on as well.
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But yeah, that's basically all I wanted to say before moving on to the rest of the layoff stuff.
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So going back to my layoff experience,
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what's crazy is that before the layoff happened,
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I think it might have been less than a month before I was having lunch with my manager
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and he was just you know asking me where's my head
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at you know what am I thinking how things have been
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so far and I remember telling him
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that I feel like I'm in a race against time here
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you know junior level roles seems like they're getting slashed you know all across the U.S just worldwide
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and I was basically saying you know with the advent of AI regardless of whether it's truly boosting productivity
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or not seems like that's the direction companies are moving in
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and so it just feels like I'm in a race to basically get promoted before I get cut.
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And he told me something along the lines of,
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yeah, it's possible, but ideally,
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that wouldn't happen here because,
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you know, the company needs to invest in the future.
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And if we only hire senior engineers,
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then what are we going to do,
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you know, in 10 years time when they all leave?
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And that wasn't very reassuring to me.
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And it turned out to be not true.
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So it's just kind of strange having that exact conversation about me being replaced by AI.
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And then, you know, CrowdStrike releases an email basically saying we're laying off people because of AI efficiencies.
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And what's super ironic about this whole situation is that,
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you know, I'm being told I'm being laid off by AI, productivity boosts, basically.
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But, and I want to be careful here saying this,
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when I joined, I was pretty much the only one on the team,
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you know, being young, that had any experience with,
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you know, AI development tools like,
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you know, cursor, cloud code, codex, et cetera.
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And none of them had really seen it before when I was talking to them about it at lunch and they,
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you know, were super interested once I showed them,
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you know, videos of it and things like that.
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And then I actually poked around and found the internal AI company tool,
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which I won't go into too much detail,
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basically just think about it like Copilot, nothing special, right?
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Like they're always behind on the tooling because they have to develop it internally at these large companies.
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And then I showed it to the team.
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I gave a pretty, you know,
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big presentation to the team during one of the meetings
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and then they all started using it more and more and
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so it's just funny to me
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that you know I'm being told I'm being laid off by AI
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when I'm the one who's kind of showing the team the power of it
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so that pretty much concludes my whole layoff experience um
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and my you know kind of quick life update on my current job situation
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which you know again super grateful and super lucky to be in this position
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but what I will say is
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that it's pretty shocking well honestly at this point it's not
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shocking like it's just crazy to see you know it felt like to me when Crosshack laid off 500 people,
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that felt insane because after,
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you know, there was a spreadsheet of all the people who got laid off
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and I was just scrolling through it and I was like, this is insane.
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Senior engineers, principal engineers, staff engineers,
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just full of high level people that just got wiped out probably after like 10 years of being at the company.
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And, you know, especially now after seeing the Amazon layouts,
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which is 16,000, which I can't even fathom.
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It's just pretty insane how these layouts just keep on coming.
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So, you know, let me know in the comments
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if you have any questions about my experience
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and you know let me know if you guys have gone through anything similar thanks for watching
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Context & Background
In the video titled "Laid Off After 4 Months as a Software Engineer," the speaker shares a personal experience about being laid off shortly after starting a new job. Reflecting on the emotional turmoil that accompanies unexpected job loss, the speaker describes the moment they realized something was wrong during a team meeting. This context highlights the challenges and stresses that can arise in the corporate world, especially for those new to their roles. Understanding this scenario can greatly benefit English learners, particularly those interested in corporate communications.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- "What's going on?" - A versatile expression used to inquire about a situation.
- "That looks like a bad sign." - A phrase indicating a negative interpretation of events.
- "Let me know if you want to discuss." - An offer to have a further conversation about a topic.
- "That's what it looks like." - A way to acknowledge an assumption based on available information.
- "Was there anything I could have done?" - A reflective question that seeks to understand past actions or decisions.
These phrases are particularly useful for learners aiming to enhance their verbal communication skills in professional settings. Integrating these phrases into everyday conversations can help improve fluency and confidence in speaking.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To effectively utilize this video for English learning through shadowing, follow these steps:
- Watch the Video: Start by viewing the video without any distractions to get a general understanding of the content.
- Listen Carefully: Play the video again, focusing on pronunciation and intonation. Pay attention to the speaker's emotional tone, especially during moments of stress.
- Practice Shadowing: As you listen, start to repeat the speaker's words in real-time, matching their pace and style. Utilize shadowspeak techniques by mimicking their speech to enhance your pronunciation and rhythm.
- Break it Down: If certain phrases are challenging, isolate them and practice repeatedly until you feel comfortable. This is particularly important for expressions like "That looks like a bad sign" or "Was there anything I could have done?"
- Record and Evaluate: Record yourself using a tool from any shadowing site to compare your speech with the original. Identify areas of improvement in pronunciation and fluency.
By actively engaging with the content and practicing with shadow speech techniques, learners can improve their English proficiency and become more adept at expressing complex feelings and scenarios in the workplace.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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