If you opened your news feed in January 2023, you probably felt the ground shift. Amazon announced 18,000 job cuts. Google followed with 12,000. Microsoft eliminated 10,000 positions. Meta cut 11,000 more. By the end of the month, over 89,000 tech workers had lost their jobs, and the headlines screamed about a tech industry reckoning. The anxiety was palpable across every Slack channel, Reddit thread, and coffee shop where engineers gathered.

But here’s what most of those headlines missed: if you work in IT infrastructure, systems administration, network engineering, security operations, or cloud platform management, you’re not in the group getting hammered. The layoffs landed almost entirely on product and engineering organizations that had hired aggressively during the pandemic boom. The IT operations world looks different.

Understanding the Real Story

During the pandemic, tech companies made a bet that the boom was permanent. They hired product managers, software engineers, and designers at rates that didn’t match their actual revenue growth. When reality caught up, those organizations became the obvious place to cut. A company that had built out engineering teams that could support five products but only had demand for three is overstaffed in a way that’s mathematically unsustainable.

IT infrastructure, by contrast, didn’t expand recklessly in the same way. You can’t hire too many systems administrators and then decide three months later you don’t need them. Your infrastructure needs are tied to your actual workload, and those demands didn’t suddenly evaporate when the music stopped. If anything, the companies doing the cutting need their IT teams working harder, not softer.

This distinction matters because it changes how you should interpret the noise. The tech layoff story that’s dominating the news cycle isn’t really your story if you’ve built your career in IT operations or security. That said, it pays to be prepared.

The implications are important. If you’re in infrastructure or security, the January 2023 layoffs are terrible for the people affected and you should have compassion for them, but they’re not a threat to your career trajectory. They might actually open opportunities. If you’re in product engineering and got caught up in the cuts, that’s a completely different conversation, and the market for those roles is genuinely more difficult right now.

What to Do If You’re at a Company Doing Layoffs

If you work somewhere that’s cutting headcount, the first thing is to stay calm and practical. Panic makes you useless, and this is the exact moment when your team needs you most.

Document your work methodically. This doesn’t mean paranoia; it means keeping a running record of what you’ve accomplished. What systems did you design or maintain? What incidents did you resolve? What improvements did you implement? Keep a simple text file, update it monthly, and include metrics where they exist. If you do end up in a severance conversation, this record becomes invaluable. More importantly, it becomes part of how you tell your story to the next employer.

Gather references before you need them. Start thinking about managers, senior colleagues, and cross-functional leaders who can speak to your work. If you know cuts are coming, a quiet conversation now with someone you trust about keeping in touch is far better than trying to reconnect when you’re freshly laid off. People understand this; it’s normal.

Read your severance agreement carefully, and know what you’re entitled to. Get it in writing. If your company offers severance, understand whether there are conditions on your unemployment claim, whether they’re extending health insurance, and what the timeline looks like. If you have the option, talk to an employment attorney before signing anything; many offer free initial consultations. You’re not being paranoid. You’re being professional.

Check your state’s unemployment insurance rules now, not later. Eligibility and benefit amounts vary. Some states are more generous than others. Knowing what you’re entitled to removes one source of stress when you might need it.

Why IT Jobs Are More Resilient Than the Headlines Suggest

The panic around tech layoffs makes sense if you’re listening to the news without understanding the structure underneath. The layoffs are real, the numbers are staggering, and the impact on people’s lives is genuine. But there’s a critical distinction between being in tech and being in IT infrastructure, and that distinction should significantly change how you respond.

IT operations, cloud platform engineering, and security aren’t glamorous. They don’t generate venture capital interest or board meeting excitement. But they’re also not discretionary. When a company cuts product teams, they do so because they built too many products or hired too many people to build them. That’s a choice they made based on incorrect predictions about growth. But infrastructure doesn’t work that way. You don’t accidentally build too much infrastructure. You typically build the minimum you think you need, and then you’re always scrambling for more.

This means that companies cutting product teams are simultaneously working harder to maintain their infrastructure with existing resources. Your IT teams aren’t getting surplus; they’re getting squeezed. But they’re not getting cut. There’s structural demand for the work you do that doesn’t exist for product management or junior engineering roles.

This isn’t theoretically true; it’s already happening. As I’m writing this in January 2023, every infrastructure-focused tech professional I know is getting multiple recruiter calls per week. The market has bifurcated. There’s a mass layoff happening in product organizations, and there’s simultaneous hiring happening in infrastructure and security. Both things are true at the same time.

The reason isn’t complicated. Companies that realize they over-hired in product don’t suddenly have less infrastructure work. In many cases, they have more of it, because they’re consolidating tools, optimizing cloud spend, migrating away from expensive vendor solutions, and hardening their security posture to reduce risk. That work requires skilled people. The demand is there. It’s just not obvious if you’re only reading the headlines about layoffs.

The Broader Market Context

Here’s the reality that should actually reassure you: skilled IT professionals are not facing the same market squeeze as the broader engineering cohort. The demand for people who can manage cloud infrastructure, keep security systems running, maintain networks, and architect reliable systems is still strong. Companies are cutting people, but they’re doing it because they overbuilt in the wrong places.

The people who are most at risk right now are those in non-essential roles in large companies, people earlier in their careers with less specialized knowledge, and people in roles that are genuinely redundant post-boom. That’s not most IT infrastructure professionals. Your value is tied to your company’s operational needs, not to market hype around how many users they can acquire or features they can ship.

What This Means for Your Career Moves

If you’re sitting tight right now, that’s reasonable. If your company is stable and you’re not hearing about cuts in your department, there’s no reason to jump ship purely out of fear. Anxiety isn’t a good reason to negotiate your next role.

If you’re actively looking or your situation becomes uncertain, this is actually a buyer’s market for candidates with solid IT credentials. Companies still need to hire for infrastructure and security roles. The people hiring for those roles understand that they’re competing with other companies for the same talent. You’re in a strong position to negotiate strategically.

For those earlier in your IT career, this moment is also clarifying. The companies that are overstaffed in engineering might have internal tools, documentation, and mentorship opportunities that are invaluable. Being somewhere that’s stable right now could give you time to deepen your skills and build a stronger foundation for the next three to five years. Weigh that against the stress of working somewhere unstable, but don’t assume instability is coming just because you’re in tech.

The Conversation You Need to Have With Yourself

This is a good moment to ask yourself a harder question: did you actually want to work where you were working before the layoffs? Sometimes the threat of job loss forces us to examine whether we were satisfied with the role, the company, or the direction of our career. If the layoffs didn’t touch you directly but rattled you anyway, that might be worth exploring.

The tech industry is still hiring. It’s still competitive. But it’s no longer in growth-at-all-costs mode, and for IT professionals who value stability, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Use this moment to think about what you actually want from your next role: better compensation, more interesting technical challenges, a company with sustainable hiring practices, or something else entirely.

The reckoning is real, but it’s not hitting all parts of the industry equally. Know where you stand, keep your documentation current, maintain your network, and move thoughtfully. That’s how you survive not just this moment, but the next one too.

Related reading: Learn what’s driving broader shifts in tech careers in ChatGPT Just Changed Everything: What AI Means for Your IT Career, and review core negotiation strategies in Year-End Negotiations: How to Secure a Raise or Promotion Before 2023.