Company is going through layoffs, but still interviewing me. Red flag?

No, it's not necessarily a red flag. The company might cut back on unprofitable businesses and reinforcing their profit making arms.

It is important to consider your own preferences, don't listen too much on others :) For example, some people thrive in companies that are doing extremely well, have lots of money for experimentation, there's not much financial pressure, etc. Some others (e.g. myself) like being dropped into crisis situations because they're interesting, you can learn a lot about people and every decision matters. Also, being a contrarian can help you to opportunities that you'd not get during 'peacetime'.

You can ask about job security during an interview. Many interviewers will be honest, and if they're not, you can still guess based on their reaction.

It'll be hard to get the courage to do this, but you should ask them directly about it. "Your company lid off 20% of the workforce last week, how will that affect potential new hires like me?" At the very least, this will expose companies that are wasting your time.

Not completely a red flag... I've only been through layoffs twice but both times the cuts the company made were pretty logical in terms of investing more in the existing profitable parts of the company and cutting things that were bets but would have take awhile to even prove if they were the right bets to make.

The one thing I would be concerned about is the ~2 months after layoffs are pretty rough morale wise.

- People lost their friends and are upset about it

- Systems start breaking and the knowledge of them was lost

- Team restructuring means learning how to work with new people

- Adjusting expectations for the new velocity of the remaining engineers takes time

I personally would not join a company that recently did layoffs because socially its going to be awkward for awhile.

Personally, I would avoid taking a position at a company that has plans to, or has recently done, a substantial layoff. But YMMV. It all depends on what your risk tolerance is.

It will be a good idea to check out the previous/ongoing layoff reasons, and decide accordingly.

Are they closing one of the products and those people can't be reassigned? They decided to get rid of sales team because they weren't as effective?

There is a huge bubble of layoffs nowadays BUT they all are not equivalent in nature. An example: layoffs have been a normal thing in financial companies for over few decades (performance based).

Its definitely worth considering, but it's also entirely possible (especially at a very large company) that you are being hired into a different part of the business which is in some way isolated from the layoffs. E.g. joining a core business team while R and D / exploratory new stuff is getting cut might still be fine.

I'd also just ask them, although of course it's hard to trust any answer you get completely.

Be aware of hire to fire

Say you're a manager who just lost 20% work force and want a hedge against the next round, what do you do? - hire someone, anyone, to throw under the bus when the time comes

It might even help your odds.

My company desperately needs people but also instituted a hiring freeze. We're not canceling any existing interviews and will treat those candidates like normal. I would suspect they have a much higher chance of acceptance given that it will be the last opportunity for teams to increase headcount for a while.

Not necessarily. (a) They could be laying off low performers and still looking for backfill some of them. (b) they could be laying off in certain skill areas and hiring in others. (c) One division could be laying off while another is hiring.

I know at least one such example where around 50% of the folks across the whole organization were let go, even a substantial part of R&D, and the organization just continued with the hiring process for pretty much the same positions.

This to me reads as "it's you not me" type of mentality and I personally wouldn't join such an organization.

A 20% layoff is absolutely a red flag. Morale will be impacted and there is a likelihood of further layoffs. If you are out of work it's worth considering but a 20% layoff is as likely to mean more trouble ahead as not.

Here is a link you might find interesting.

https://www.trueup.io/layoffs

You like premature worrying.

Did any of them send you a signed offer? If yes, do you know for sure that latter one is going through a large layoff?

Spoiler: You won't reply or respond with no.

Edit: OP, thanks for the instant downvote (which I forgot to put as the third spoiler option).

Pre-ipo? Your equity most likely will be worth nothing