I Almost Gave Up on Myself

I got laid off again. Here’s what happened and what I learned.

February 5, 2025. I remember the morning clearly. I had just woken up early to get my daughter ready for school. The sun hadn’t even fully risen yet. I opened Slack out of habit and saw messages pouring in. Layoffs were happening in the US office. A few hours later, the axe came down in APAC. And just like that, I was out.

Five hours into my day, I no longer had a job.

This wasn’t my first layoff. I went through one during COVID, and I thought the second time would be easier. It wasn’t. In fact, it hit differently. Not harder or softer, just strange. The first time, there was chaos in the world, and it felt like we were all struggling together. This time, it felt more isolating. Like I was suddenly excluded from a world I had been part of for years.

After sorting out the logistics, saying goodbye to teammates, signing documents, I sat in the quiet for a while. My family was there, and that helped. The next day, I posted about the layoff on LinkedIn. I thanked the company. In hindsight, I’m not sure why. Maybe because I didn’t know what else to say. Maybe because I thought it was the polite thing to do. Maybe because I hadn’t fully processed how I really felt.

What followed was 30 days of writing. Not because I wanted attention. Not because I was trying to optimize for reach or land a job. I just needed to write. To process. To not disappear. And in return, people responded. Friends, former colleagues, even strangers. Some shared their own stories. Some just said “me too.” That alone made me feel a little less alone.

But what I didn’t share at the time were the breakdowns. The 2 a.m. panic spirals. The doomscrolling. The obsessive LinkedIn browsing. Reading post after post about how AI was replacing everything, how UX was supposedly dead, how job seekers were being ghosted or offered 40 percent less than their last role. I knew I shouldn’t internalize it all, but I couldn’t stop. It was like watching a slow-motion collapse of the career I had built for over 15 years.

At the same time, I saw leaders and former teammates posting about product launches, company plans, new hires. It felt surreal. Like watching a parallel universe move forward while mine was frozen. I questioned everything. Do we stay in Singapore? Do we go back to Indonesia? Is it even worth being a Singapore PR if I can’t land a job here?

Still, I did what most of us do. I applied. A lot. Some applications went nowhere. Some led to interviews. I reconnected with people I hadn’t talked to in years. Some remembered me and wanted to help. Others surfaced opportunities I had passed up when I was still comfortable at Tripadvisor. I aimed high. I looked for design leadership roles, principal roles, manager roles. But the higher you go, the fuzzier the rules become. Fit starts to matter more than skill. Some companies thought I wasn’t managerial enough. Others thought I was too IC. Some offered roles that were a step down, and not even subtly.

Every interview was a different game with a different set of rules. Some focused on design craft. Others cared more about business thinking. Some grilled me on systems. Others wanted B2B experience even though they knew I had mostly done B2C. And I often didn’t know what they were really looking for until it was too late. I’d spend days crafting a presentation only to be told afterward, “You seem more like a strong individual contributor than a team leader.” If that was the case, I wish they had said it from the start.

Surprisingly, what turned out to be the most helpful were the design challenges. The take-home assignments. I used to hate them. They felt exploitative. Why should anyone do work for free? But this time, I embraced them. Because unlike portfolio reviews that dissect your past, design challenges show your potential. One of those challenges led to an actual offer. For that, I’m grateful.

If you’re job hunting right now and you have the capacity, I’d say don’t dismiss these challenges outright. Just be mindful. Know your limits. If a company doesn’t respect your time or effort, that’s a red flag. Ideally, they should compensate you. But even if they don’t, the exercise can sometimes be the clearest way to show what you’re capable of.

It’s an employer’s market right now. There are more designers than open roles. Salaries are being slashed. Some of the offers I got were significantly lower than what I made before. But markets shift. They always do. And the companies that underpay or treat candidates poorly will feel the impact when the tide turns. Good people will leave the moment they have better options.

If you’re in a position to hire right now, please treat candidates fairly. Pay them fairly. Be transparent. It’s not just the decent thing to do. It’s the smart, long-term strategy.

So what have I learned from all this? That rejection still stings, no matter how senior you are. That writing openly can be grounding. That AI panic is a distraction, not a direction. That leadership hiring is more political than people admit. That portfolio reviews are broken. That design challenges, when done right, can actually open doors. And most importantly, that even if the market doesn’t value you today, that doesn’t mean you’re not valuable. It just means your moment hasn’t come yet.

If you’re still in the thick of it, sending out CVs, refreshing your inbox, second-guessing your abilities, I see you. I’ve been there. I might still be there, depending on when you read this. But keep going. Rest when you need to, then keep going.

Thanks for reading. If you're curious, I talked about this in a video too, which you can watch here.