If you got laid off from a tech company in 2026, you’re probably not alone at your company. Most of the layoffs happening this year are team-level or org-level restructurings, not individual performance exits. The process of what to do next is roughly the same regardless of why you’re in it, but the timeline assumptions are different from what they were in 2021 or even 2023.
Expect the search to take three to five months at the mid-to-senior level. That’s not pessimism. That’s what the data shows, and you should plan financially and psychologically around that timeline rather than around the hope that you’ll land something in six weeks.
The first 48 hours: administrative things that don’t feel urgent but are
File for unemployment benefits within the first 48 hours of your last day. I know this feels premature and some people skip it because they assume they’ll find something quickly. File anyway. There’s usually a waiting period before benefits kick in. If you end up with a longer search, you’ll want those weeks of coverage, and you can always stop claiming if you’re hired. The Department of Labor has state-by-state info at dol.gov.
Review your severance agreement before you sign it. Most agreements come with a release of claims, which means you’re agreeing not to sue the company in exchange for the severance. That’s often fine. It’s worth reading carefully, and if you have any outstanding equity, commission, or bonus questions, those need to be resolved before you sign, not after. Companies have a legal window in which they must give you time to consider the agreement. Don’t sign on day one just to get it done.
Your health insurance situation has a hard deadline. COBRA is available but expensive. Marketplace plans from healthcare.gov are generally cheaper. You have 60 days from your coverage termination date to enroll. This is an actual deadline with actual consequences, so put it on your calendar.
The job search math nobody wants to do
A structured search beats a high-volume spray-and-pray campaign in this market. I’ve watched engineers submit 200 applications over three months and get three callbacks. I’ve also watched engineers contact 47 people directly, have real conversations with 19 of them, and convert two of those into referrals that led to offers. The second approach takes more courage and produces better outcomes.
The LinkedIn Economic Graph research on hiring consistently finds that referred candidates are hired at a rate roughly four to five times higher than cold applicants at the same companies. That ratio has been stable for years and doesn’t seem to be narrowing. If you have former colleagues who are now at companies you want to work at, contacting them is the highest-return activity you can do.
Recruiters at staffing firms are inconsistent. Some are excellent. Many are filling their candidate pipeline and will submit your resume to roles that don’t fit you. Be selective about which recruiters you work with, and make sure they tell you the company name before submitting your resume anywhere.
LinkedIn: the stuff that actually matters
Turn on “Open to Work” (visible to recruiters only, not your whole network). Recruiters use Boolean searches constantly, and the keywords in your headline and summary determine whether you show up at all.
Your headline should describe what you do and at what level, not your most recent job title. “Senior Backend Engineer, distributed systems and data pipelines” is more searchable than “Senior Software Engineer at [Company That Just Laid Me Off].” Your current employer shows in your experience section. The headline should work harder.
Activity matters more than people think. Recruiters look at whether your profile has been active recently. A comment on a relevant post, a share with your take on it, a short note about something you built, any of these signal that you’re engaged. I can’t prove this changes recruiter behavior at a statistically significant level. Anecdotally, it seems to.
Interview prep from day one, not week four
The worst time to start interview prep is after you’ve landed interviews. Start within your first two weeks of being laid off, while you’re still in the habit of working on technical problems regularly.
For software engineers specifically, this means keeping algorithmic problem-solving warm (even if you hate LeetCode, you’ll probably encounter it), running through system design questions out loud, and refreshing your behavioral stories. The STAR format for behavioral questions (Situation, Task, Action, Result) is known enough that interviewers have started probing for it. The better move is to tell stories naturally, with the components of STAR present but not visibly formulaic.
The Stack Overflow 2024 Developer Survey found that developers who regularly practice technical communication are significantly more confident in interviews. That tracks. System design in particular is a communication exercise as much as a technical one. If you haven’t explained a distributed system design out loud in six months, you will be rusty in a way that shows up on calls.
Craqly’s mock interview mode lets you run system design and behavioral sessions with real-time feedback, which is particularly useful during the early prep phase when you’re recalibrating how you talk through problems. The value isn’t in the AI knowing more than you. It’s in having something to practice against that pushes back.
Managing the timeline psychologically
Three to five months is a long time to be in a state of waiting and uncertainty. Some things that seem to help: treat the job search like a job with defined working hours, not something you do constantly all day. Set a hard end time. Maintain one or two projects that aren’t the job search, building something, contributing to open source, writing, anything.
The engineers I’ve seen handle long searches best are the ones who stopped measuring success by outcomes (offers) and started measuring it by inputs (applications sent, calls booked, people contacted). Outcomes lag inputs by weeks. If you’re only tracking outcomes, you’ll feel stuck for most of the search even when you’re doing the right things.
What sectors are actually absorbing laid-off tech workers right now
AI infrastructure companies and the broader “picks and shovels” layer of the AI stack. Healthcare tech, which has been under-digitized for years and is spending heavily. Defense and aerospace tech, which has had consistent demand that doesn’t track the consumer/enterprise tech cycle. Climate tech in pockets, though the financing environment is harder than it was two years ago.
Non-FAANG companies with $100M+ in revenue, in unsexy industries, are frequently a better market than they appear. A mid-sized logistics company or a regional bank’s technology team isn’t going to make your LinkedIn profile look exciting, but these companies often have real, interesting technical problems, stable funding, and less competition per open role than a well-known tech employer.
The search is uncomfortable and the market is harder than it was. Neither of those things is permanent, but “it’ll get better soon” isn’t a plan. A plan is 47 targeted contacts, three months of daily prep, and financial runway that doesn’t require a decision in week six. Build that first.