Nerd Journey: Career Advice for the Technology Professional
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Layoff Bounce Back: Resilience through Personal and Professional Networks with Dave Stevens
Imagine your work day starting off like any other only to find you’ve been laid off. What would you do next? Dave Stevens lived this reality a couple of years ago and joins us this week in episode 354 to share the lessons from that experience. We’ll take you through how Dave processed the news of being laid off, the warning signs he missed, when he knew it was time to begin searching for a new role, how he thought about what to do next, and the critical importance of his personal and professional network throughout this process. Regardless of your age or the size of your professional network, Dave shares actionable suggestions for building professional connections that we all may be overlooking. Original Recording Date: 10-28-2025 Topics – Background and the Impact of a Layoff Event, Initial Forward Progress and Reliance on a Professional Network, Skills Gaps and Unexpected Positives, Elements of the Personal and Professional Network, Reaching Closure and Reflecting Back on the Lessons 2:27 – Background and the Impact of a Layoff Event Dave Stevens is a Field Solutions Architect at Pure Storage. In this role, Dave is a technical overlay for pre-sales technical personnel at Pure across North America. This is the role Dave took after he was impacted by a layoff. What was Dave’s role before he was impacted by a layoff event? For context, the layoff event we discuss in this episode took place around 2.5 years before this recording. Dave was classified as a systems engineer or pre-sales technical resource at his employer supporting multiple account reps. It was more of a solutions architect type of role, and Dave highlights his entry into this organization and role was via acquisition. Was there an element of technical marketing to the role? Nick mentions that Dave often had to attend trade shows in this role. Dave had a virtualization background and went to a lot of events to discuss how his company’s products integrated with those different technology ecosystems. The day Dave was laid off started as a normal day at his home office. His boss was based in Europe, so most 1-1 calls were usually late in the day his boss’s time (early afternoon for Dave). A meeting popped up that was earlier than usual, but Dave didn’t think anything of it. Right after Dave joined the remote session for the meeting, someone from HR joined followed by Dave’s boss. Dave wasn’t quite sure what to expect and didn’t know what was happening. He didn’t know if it was a layoff coming or some other kind of situation happening at his company. When Dave was laid off, they told him it was not for performance reasons, but there weren’t really any other details provided on why he was being laid off. “So, at that point it was just like, ‘what do I do?’” – Dave Stevens, on receiving layoff news After receiving the news, Dave’s access to company systems like e-mail was quickly cut off. He went downstairs and spent the rest of his day relaxing. Dave did not want to talk about what happened any further that first day. Did Dave struggle with separating his identity from his employer or the job he held at all when this happened? Dave says he did, at least a little bit. Dave wanted to be successful in whatever role he found himself, and the reason he was in the systems engineering role at the time of the layoff event is a result of his drive to be successful in the years leading up to that role. “I also wanted to make sure that…the people that I worked with that I enjoyed working with. If I didn’t enjoy working with them, then there was no reason to continue staying there. So that’s part of my identity on how I interact with work.” – Dave Stevens In the early days of Twitter (now X), Dave defined an identity there. He also created a personal blog. Dave says his identity was often tied to where he worked. “Once this all happened, I just kind of cut that off. And I needed some time to really digest what I just went through that day.” – Dave Stevens Is there something Dave wishes people had done for him when this first happened? Dave says he wishes he would have listened to his wife. Before experiencing the layoff event, a number of colleagues who had entered the company through acquisition like Dave were either leaving or had been laid off (including his boss being laid off). At the time, Dave didn’t think much about these events. Dave’s wife had encouraged him to look for other jobs before the layoff happened, and he feels he should have listened. “It’s much easier finding a job when you have a job. There’s not as much pressure on you. You can take your time and really find the job that you want. That’s the one thing that kind of took me by surprise….” – Dave Stevens Did Dave’s wife also point him in a direction or provide feedback on the type of work he should pursue? We’ve spoken to previous guests who had spouses that provided insight into the type of work that made them happy. Dave feels like there has been an element of this in place since he and his wife got married. When Dave got a job opportunity to relocate to the New Hampshire area, his wife had some interesting feedback. “It’s great that you’re going to make more than you’re making at the job you are currently, but I don’t want you to take a job just because of money. I want you to take a job because it’s something you’re interested in doing and you’re going to be happy at. So, I’ve always kept that in the back of my mind every time I go and look for a job….” – Dave Stevens, quoting his wife’s advice Dave considered this same advice when pursuing his current role at Pure. Because he enjoyed meeting and speaking with people during the interview process, the decision to accept the role was easy. Liking the people he would be working with was more important than a pay increase. 10:53 – Initial Forward Progress and Reliance on a Professional Network How long did Dave need to process before taking the first actions toward a new role? For the first 3 weeks or so, Dave relaxed a little bit. There were a number of projects at home that he needed to do and some that he wanted to do. Working on the projects helped take his mind off what had happened. Dave mentions he was given a severance for about 3 months and wanted to find a new role within that time period if possible. But if he could not find something in that time period, it would not be the end of the world. Dave tells us it was easier to find work when he was laid off than it is currently. Close to the time of this recording, AWS announced job cuts for up to 30,000 people. He made the conscious decision after those first few weeks to spend the first part of the day searching for new jobs and then continued working on different projects in the afternoons. How did Dave know who to reach out to first? Nick argues that most of us likely don’t have a list of who we would call if something like this happened. When Dave came to the New England area, he started working for Dell in tech marketing. Through his work, Dave built a tight bond with many of his co-workers. Dave remembers sending a text message to many of his former co-workers (none of which were still at Dell) asking if they knew of any open opportunities. Dave wanted to understand what former colleagues were working on now and what the culture of their company was like. He started by seeking out people he already enjoyed working with and analyzed whether it made sense to go and work with them again. Was Dave open to different types of roles in his job search, or did that not matter? It had to be interesting work and involve people he wanted to work with or enjoyed working with. Dave says as long as it was something in the tech field, it didn’t matter too much. Dave began his career in systems administration and tech support and had experience in the storage industry, with backups, and with Active Directory to name a few areas. He had also done technical marketing and was open to returning to it. Dave also looked at pre-sales systems engineering or solution architect roles. What about taking roles that moved him deeper into a business unit like product management? Dave says product management is interesting work, but depending on the company, the work may not always have the technical aspects he likes. Many of the product managers at Pure are quite technical, but most of the product management roles he observed at other companies were not as technical as he would like. “It just didn’t interest me. It wasn’t technical enough in nature for me.” – Dave Stevens, on moving into product management It sounds like Dave had done a good job of keeping in touch with people in his professional network over time. “I have always made sure to have a small group of folks that I can just reach out to at any time and…chat about anything…. I’ve always made sure to have that…. I didn’t talk to them all the time, but we all interacted in some way, shape, or form whether it was an e-mail or text messaging…even some stuff on LinkedIn. We all kind of kept in touch…. I had people that I could fall back on and reach out to and get advice from if I needed to. This is the time where I really needed some advice on where to go to next.” – Dave Stevens Dave says he was lucky enough to find a new job before the end of his 3 months of severance pay. Dave’s wife commented that she wasn’t too worried about him. She knew he had a strong professional network. Did anyone in Dave’s professional network ask him what he wanted to do next, or did they just start making recommendations based on what they knew about him? Dave says it was a little bit of both. Some people pointed Dave to specific open roles in the same group where they worked (still in tech, of course), while others directed him to the company job site and offered to act as a referra
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