"Nope. No layoffs" is to companies about to do layoffs as "It's against the constitution to lie about being a police officer" is to undercover cops doing drug busts.

Companies generally try very hard to limit the warnings that layoffs will be coming. Every time I've seen layoffs it's a week or so after the "macro is tough, but we're still strong" meeting.

Ultimately this is the hardest part of layoffs: the uncertainty and lack of control.

You can't really know layoffs are coming until the day you get that email, and you also can't really do anything to save your job no matter how much you would like to believe you can.

It's a stressful season in tech to be sure.