In 2025, my employer—Nikola Corporation—filed for bankruptcy. Over nine hundred people were affected by the closure in their own individual ways. In this article, I was keen to explore how it has impacted me and analyze how my behaviors have changed regarding employment. I also want to discuss lessons learned that could be helpful for others in similar situations.
Like most colleagues, I had not experienced a company bankruptcy and did not have mental models1 to navigate it. Take walking, for example. We have been walking since a few months after birth, and as adults have strong mental models to walk or even “advance” walk, i.e., run. We can swerve around potholes, people and run away from chasing, potentially rabid, stray dogs (growing up in India was an adventure). For company bankruptcies and loss of income, however, mental models are rare or nonexistent.
I was in a quagmire because, as someone not on the executive team, my decisions up to the announcement and after could not change the outcome. We in the lower echelons of the company have only a few levers. For example, one could stop unnecessary spending in their teams by, say, salvaging existing resources for new projects, or going as extreme as laying off most of their team. But the impact it has on a hardware-focused company like Nikola is negligible, where one component on the truck could be multiples of someone’s annual salary. This lack of control over your outcomes is disturbing, especially when your livelihood depends on it, and is a major stressor2.
I did not have kids or overbearing debt—except for the mortgage—that would worry me about loss of income, and thanks to my (and my spouse’s) frugal upbringing, we had enough savings to survive a decade. But I had immigration worries that were just as emotionally draining. To maintain valid immigration status, one has to find a job—an employer that will “sponsor” their immigration—within sixty days of the last paycheck. However inflated my view was of my skills and expertise, I was not being scouted by potential employers ready to onboard me with desirable salaries. I had to apply to multiple roles. Due to the ease of applying to jobs nowadays, a typical job posting gets hundreds of applications from all around the world, some ready to work for salaries lower than my entry-level salary. How does one compete with that? Besides, most automotive jobs were in California or Michigan, and I would rather not uproot everything to move to an overly expensive state where we could be destitute or to a cold tundra where life happened from May through November, respectively. The uncertainty was palpable, and the burden of making the right decision was unnerving.
Overall, it all worked out. I received multiple offers and was able to start a new job within a few days after the closure. My immigration worries were sorted (more on this in another article), and life took on a normalcy that my family was expecting.
These experiences brought in me a subtle change. I am no longer emotionally invested in an employer or its successes or failures. I am, however, invested in my work, learnings, and professional relationships. Ironically, work and professional relationships are symbiotic to the company. Does that make me indirectly attached to the company? Possibly; it is an ambiguity I traverse regularly. I am learning to service my needs—personal and professional—before servicing the company. This boils down to simple decisions such as, whether to work the weekend on a project impacting internal users or to enjoy it with friends and family. Or whether to stay up late to debug an issue or head to the gym and start “debugging” the fat around my waist.
For many, these would be easy, binary, decisions. They would choose the latter to ensure their well-being or the former because they want to advance in their careers/company. I, on the other hand, find myself in the expansive middle. It is a fancy way of saying, It depends. By taking in various data points from varied sources such as behavioral patterns of colleagues, office politics, company news, learning opportunities from current work, and opportunity costs of picking one over the other, I weigh both options and pick one on a day-to-day or situation-to-situation basis. This is the aforementioned ambiguity. At Nikola, it would have been an easy decision—choose the former, work, and help the company succeed, especially in difficult times. Now, I am tempted to say I know better, and that will be only partially right.
I still enjoy working. I love solving complex problems via software, resolving complexity by adopting simplicity in an existing codebase, making something performant, talking (arguing) with colleagues about trivial things such as build systems, etc. Likewise, I still strive to improve the quality of my work and be vocal about the poor quality of existing processes. The only difference is that the tide wets the sand of my beach before the employers.
Although I don’t wish this on any employer or its employees, I was personally glad for this experience and the lessons learned. They have enamored me and have developed a mental fortitude absent from my past. With that, here are some lessons that I have learned from this debacle.
Have an emergency fund that supports your lifestyle for eight months to a year. If you spend $1,000 per month, you should have $8,000-$12,000 in an emergency fund, no exceptions. One cannot control their employer’s finances, but you can definitely control yours. The monetary buffer provides calmness in a time of uncertainty and varied market conditions. Remember, employer medical benefits will cease to exist after the company shuts down, and a medical emergency with no savings is the last thing anyone needs in this chaos. Many of my high-salaried (greater than $200,000 per year) superiors did not have these savings, and they were scrambling to find jobs, any job, to keep them afloat.
This will be controversial, but insulate yourself from these soon-to-be-former colleagues. If it means staying home during the notice period or avoiding team lunches, do it. Comparing yourself with others or their successes is incredibly stressful and demoralizing for your well-being. And you will compare yourself; that’s what humans do. Everyone has a different story, and when you hear someone else’s viewpoints, especially in these dire circumstances, you start to question everything. Am I applying to the right positions? Should I apply to positions that are a level lower? Am I right to spend time expanding my skills with personal projects when people have already received generous offers? Why would company X hire me now that they already have Mr. Y? This is what I went through for two months. Don’t make this mistake.
Attend relevant conferences and professional meet-up events. These are a great way to meet people from potential employers. I was lucky to present at a conference after the company shut down. In attendance was the hiring manager whom I had interviewed with a few days ago, who was impressed by my talk, and I was able to have dinner with him later. It culminated in an offer. A few others asked me to apply to positions that they were hiring for, which resulted in interviews. I would advise you to talk to these people without an outward projection of the turmoil within you. Do not sound needy or pushy; be amicable. They are people too.
Show your work3. As engineers, we sometimes deem our work as having no “show” capacity, and frankly, most of us cannot communicate what we do. We tell ourselves, it is too technical to show outside these few people who understand, or it is too proprietary to advertise, or it is too elaborate for me to concisely summarize, or who would want to read my work. Often times, these are our insecurities. If you are already involved in publishing articles in respectable journals, good for you. But if you are not, show your work in relevant conference talks, blog posts, or other avenues where people of your caliber mingle. It will not only publicize your work, but you will also learn how to communicate your concepts in bite-sized pieces, i.e., “explain your work to a five-year-old.” This allows you to think deeply about your work and improves competency.
Good luck!