The First 30 Days After a Tech Layoff

The engineers who land in 6-8 weeks after a layoff and the ones who take 6 months are usually not separated by skill. They’re separated by what they did in the first two weeks.

The first two weeks are when the systematic people pull ahead. Here’s the playbook.

The first few days are admin. Not glamorous, but you can’t skip it.

Read your severance agreement before you sign anything. Standard packages at large tech companies run 2-4 weeks per year of service, often with a floor, and some include extended health insurance, equity acceleration, and outplacement services. Most agreements give you 21-45 days to sign - longer if you’re over 40, due to ADEA requirements. Use that time. If the severance is substantial, an employment attorney review costs $300-500 and is usually worth it.

File for unemployment the same week. You’re eligible. There’s no stigma. Benefits typically don’t start until your waiting period clears, so every day you delay is money left on the table.

On health insurance: COBRA keeps you covered but it’s expensive. Check Healthcare.gov too. If your income dropped significantly, you may qualify for subsidized marketplace coverage that’s cheaper than COBRA.

Before your access gets cut, export what you’re allowed to keep - contacts, non-confidential work samples, performance reviews, recommendations. Once you’re locked out, you’re locked out.

Once the paperwork is in order, get in front of the financial picture.

Take your liquid savings, add expected severance and unemployment, divide by monthly expenses. That’s your runway in months. Most people have 3-9 months. The number is almost always less frightening than the uncertainty of not knowing it.

Cut non-essential expenses now - not because you’re in crisis, but because reducing your burn rate extends your runway and reduces the decision pressure that makes job searching harder. The difference between searching with 7 months of runway and 4 months of runway is enormous. You make better decisions when you’re not desperate.

Don’t touch retirement accounts. The penalties are brutal: 10% plus income tax. Last resort, not first move. And if you have a mortgage, most lenders have forbearance programs. You don’t need to use them, but knowing they exist reduces anxiety.

Week two is when you go on offense.

Update your resume immediately, but carefully. This document is going to get more scrutiny than anything else you produce in the next 30 days. Add your most recent role with strong, quantified bullets. Don’t rush it.

Update your LinkedIn. Set yourself to “Open to Work” - you can make this visible only to recruiters if you’d rather keep it off your public profile. Refresh your headline and summary. Recruiters are actively searching; make sure they can find you.

Then define your target list. Spray-and-pray job searching is inefficient and demoralizing. Make a list of 15-20 companies you’d genuinely want to work at, research their hiring status, and prioritize your energy toward companies that are actually hiring and are a realistic fit.

The other thing to do this week: tell your network you’re looking. This is uncomfortable for most people. Do it anyway. Not a public post necessarily - direct messages to former colleagues, managers, and anyone who knows your work. Be specific about what you’re looking for. “I’m looking for senior backend roles, ideally at growth-stage or mid-size companies. If you hear of anything or know someone I should talk to, I’d love an intro.” Vague requests get vague responses.

The majority of engineering roles are filled through referrals. Your network is your fastest path, and most people underuse it because asking feels awkward.

By week three you should have applications out, conversations started, and an interview schedule beginning to form.

Five to ten tailored applications per week beats 50 generic ones. Tailor your resume for each role. It takes longer and converts significantly better. Prioritize companies where you have connections - a referral at a company you’re moderately interested in beats cold applying at your dream company. Get into conversations first. You can steer toward better fits once you have momentum.

Interview prep is a job now. If you’re not in interviews, you should be preparing for them. That means Leetcode fundamentals (2-3 problems a day), behavioral story prep with 8-10 strong examples you can deploy flexibly, system design review if you’re senior, and company-specific research before every conversation. None of this is optional if you want to convert interviews to offers.

Track everything in a spreadsheet. Company, role, contact, application date, status, next step. Job searches get chaotic. Organization keeps you from dropping balls. One follow-up email, one week after applying or after each interview stage - enough to signal genuine interest, not enough to be annoying.

One more thing, and I’ll keep it short.

Layoffs feel personal. They’re almost never personal. They’re a spreadsheet decision made by people who’ve never read your code or been in a meeting with you. That doesn’t make it easier emotionally. But holding onto that distinction matters, because the worst thing you can do in a job search is let the rejection narrative take root.

Every engineer I know who’s been through a layoff - and at this point that’s most of them - has landed. The ones who land fastest treat it like a project, not a crisis.

If you want to hit the ground running on your resume and interview prep, the SWE Bundle covers both, built specifically for engineers at FAANG and high-growth tech companies.