It's a bit suspicious both tech companies started complaining about productivity around the time the market started to turn. Management is happy to collect their bonuses when things are going well but seem quick the blame the workers when they aren't. Also, it's not like these these companies aren't still outrageously profitable.
Just because an employee is content 'meeting expectations' doesn't mean that they are dead weight. The managers set the expectations and if they're meeting them then the engineer is more than pulling their weight (i.e the company benefits exceeds their compensation, which for these companies is something like $1.6 million per employee). Like any large human organization, these companies are lumbering schizophrenic bureaucratic beasts with innumerable layers of management pulling in different directions so yeah there isn't great productivity but the workers aren't to blame for that nor has the situation been any different for the last decade.
Just because an employee is content 'meeting expectations' doesn't mean that they are dead weight. The managers set the expectations and if they're meeting them then the engineer is more than pulling their weight (i.e the company benefits exceeds their compensation, which for these companies is something like $1.6 million per employee). Like any large human organization, these companies are lumbering schizophrenic bureaucratic beasts with innumerable layers of management pulling in different directions so yeah there isn't great productivity but the workers aren't to blame for that nor has the situation been any different for the last decade.