The job market is rough right now. Layoffs seem to make headlines every week. Jobs are eliminated by the thousands, and the remaining workers are left to pick up the slack. I’ve been on both sides of this coin—left with more work, and eventually laid off. Ultimately, everyone has to leave a company at some point, voluntarily or not. Here are some things I feel helped me keep my job longer.

Keep Receipts #

In your day-to-day work, you probably already attend standups and/or meetings based on tickets. It’s important to keep personal notes on what you’ve worked on. At any time, your manager could ask, “What have you been up to the last 6 months?” A couple of jobs ago, I met a very smart engineer who would keep a running list of daily work and store it in Git. I adopted this habit, but I stored my notes in a Slack DM to myself. I would include what I worked on yesterday and what I planned to work on today. The running history persists and could be audited at any time. It also helped me when trying to figure out when I updated or changed any infrastructure. You could also use it to populate a “brag sheet” when performance reviews come around.

Work On Important Stuff #

Everyone wants to work on important stuff, but there’s also a never-ending list of things that need to get done. These can be one-off tickets that don’t necessarily align with quarterly business goals. They sometimes come in the form of requests like, “I need help with X so that I can fulfill my portion of the business goal.” It’s important that you help people, but it’s also important to have direct contributions to business objectives. On the other hand, you can’t just focus on direct contribution work, because then you’re leaving less desirable tasks for your team to pick up, putting them at risk.

Jump on the high-risk problem that is important to the company. This is a growth opportunity and you’ll be perceived as a valuable asset to the company. You know that database upgrade no one wanted to touch? Yup—get to work. This way of thinking should not be a long-term solution. You will experience turbulence, and if people start playing the blame game, the next round of layoffs may include you.

Comms #

Over-communicate your moves. Meet the decision makers where they are: in meetings, Slack channels, DMs, emails, etc. It is also important that you are available, especially during business hours (duh). When working remotely, it’s important to be visible where the business communicates. Managers’ minds won’t wander. “Where is he?” Keeping people up to date with when you have to step away is important as well. I personally believe we’re all responsible professionals, and shouldn’t have to send messages when we need to take our dogs out to pee.

If you work across different facets of the business, communicate any changes you make to broader audiences. Even when you’ve tested and retested things, production changes can cause outages. Letting people know when you have started and finished your work will benefit you in the long run.

Emergency Fund #

Layoffs are scary. Employees can be let go at a moment’s notice, and it’s out of our control. Having—or starting—an emergency fund is extremely important. We’re all in different financial situations and sometimes that means we don’t have much to save. I was already working on my financial stability when the first round of layoffs hit. I was wrapping up my student and car loans. This, and scaling back my spending, helped me save a six-month emergency fund. With each passing round of layoffs, I kept saving.

Health is Wealth #

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day work and not prioritize your own health. You need to exercise and tend to your medical issues. Stop putting off finding a new primary care physician. It’s going to take some time to find one, and it may take weeks or months to get an appointment. Start that process now. I was in the process of getting a new PCP and going through some medical issues when I was laid off. This all gets messier when you don’t have employer-backed health insurance.

Wrap Up #

A lot of what I’ve brought up is applicable in any job situation, but it’s important to be reminded from time to time. Focus on what you can control, and keep building.