Lots of chatter in tech twitter this week about Meta AI laying off more 600 employees. Here's the advice I've given to engineers joining a large tech company over the past few years in a senior or higher role. In your first year, you have to prove yourself and differentiate yourself as someone that can drive business value. This is the most important thing you need to accomplish within the first 12 months. It maybe the case that the area you were initially hired for just isn't valuable enough, so it's on you to find something worth your time. If you don't figure it out, it's best to leave even if it means leaving some unvested money on the table. Switching teams or wandering around aimlessly looking for problems worth solving likely won't work. You'll be an allocated, but unused variable just waiting for the garbage collector to find you.