Those who don't learn from history, etc, etc. Qualcomm has again managed a layoff so that they got smaller not stronger. The cuts were essentially random because they reflected organizational and political structure rather than future business need. Great, productive engineers were let go. Mediocre engineers stayed.
How it should be done...
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Coding test for all engineers, including VPs. Fail and you're out.
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Three interviews for each engineer by people they don't know. Stack rank and cut the lowest n%.
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Use the interview results to assign engineers to priority projects. Everything else is hard stopped.