I have been a developer in one company or another for over 27+ years. Today I had to dismiss / fire / let go of a recently hired developer (a Senior by career length) on one of the teams I now manage. Basically imposter syndrome compounded with an inability to communicate a need for support (even when we reached out daily to assist).

When I had to let this person go I felt all the times when it happened to my colleagues , and to me. Like a thousand knives stabbing . It wasn’t easy.

It’s of course not easy to be dismissed . But it’s also not easy to be the one to dismiss.

Most certainly, it never is.

However, just as we like to fight against corporate bullshit, companies are there to make money so you can in turn make money too. They are not charities.

As long as you have given ample warning, and have *cared* for your employee's circumstances, having the lay off/firing as a last measure, you have done your due diligence, and can rest easy on that.

I used to tell that to my devs, when I was able to win their long standing request of having the final say in estimates vs sales.

"Sure, it's a win for you, but you no longer have excuses. If you fail to deliver, it's on you."

As long as you don't take the short sighted stance of "lol numbers red, fire people", you can be at ease with karmic balance.

lucky me, the only time I had to fire someone (two guys who were friends and both hired at the same time a month prior) i only felt anger at the two incompetent, lazy, bigheaded, excusemaking morons, anger at myself, and regret that i didn't fire them two weeks ago but instead decided to give them one more chance.

(they didn't manage in a month to do one introductory task each, which it then took me 30 minutes during our standup call to do both in front of their eyes while fully tutorializing it for them and finally fuming at them how the fuck did they think employment works when they were taking the job, and when i finished the rant and their tasks i told them to go fuck themselves because they're fired and should have never been hired in the first place)

a month later I got fired, one big of the reasons why being boss telling me that i should have nevet let him hire them (he signed contracts with them during what i considered to be a break in the middle of their interview, when i stepped out of the office for 5 minutes to have a smoke and think. when i came back and was like "right, let's continue", the boss said "no need, it's fine, we signed the contracts while you were outside", and i was like "what the fuck?", and he was like "yeah, well, you went outside so i thought you didn't give a shit, so i took care of it, what's your problem?" )

@Midnight-shcode oh man, this must be hard!

@Daibushi it's been some years ago