Thread regarding NetApp layoffs

NetApp *was a great place to work. Problem is the culture can't sustain a market slide which was due to lack of foresight of trends that would ultimately hurt the company. There was a lot of complacency and "not invented here" mindset at NetApp. Nothing all that unusual. I hope they regain their footing. Would like to return if they get their act together again. But honestly trends do not seem in their favor. Storage in general is not a GPTW anymore ;-)

@GdOyFCg-nkr

The 2016 GPTW (USA) list came out and NetApp is not on it.

http://reviews.greatplacetowork.com/rankings/2016-fortune-100-best-companies-to-work-for-list

Mars was too little too late. It was a failed attempt that need to be celebrated. Those people tried to create a startup within netapp while carrying over the same culture. BP should have started with a clean slate on people.

Unfortunately in the aftermath the underlings are the ones who suffered. The people who messed mars either found a plum position outside are are back in ontap ready to screw some more people.

Pet project and those working on them are all over. It is across all sites. Mars, MetaWAFL, API Services, Telemetry, Simplicity. People working on these get promoted and then promote sycophancy.

At least George had the balls to cull mars.

This is netapp culture and its spread in all teams and all sites.

Sales is only following the well laid out path.

No reason to shit-talk E-Series. It's more than just spinning disks. :-P

They should have been shipping an HA product in 2014.

Mars was kicked off in 2013 so shipping an enterprise ready HA solution in 2014 would have miraculous. No, the real problem was that Mars was kicked off 3 years earlier and that blame falls plainly on Netapp "leadership" and the ONTAP-mafia.

They didn't get to market for whatever reason in a reasonable timeframe. They should have been shipping an HA product in 2014. They didn't and there's no reason to believe the pace would change. That's why they are no longer a project.

Out of the 9 years I stayed with them (left to work for startup in 2014), once I figured out the GPTW crap is a sham after the first two years, I stopped responding that survey email.

I don't think there is much overlap between Solidfire and Ontap. Whatever core Linux skills the Mars team had, might have assisted Solidfire... but I rather doubt it. Solidfire seems to me to be the step forward needed for the foundation of Ontap. They'll completely supplant EF-series, and E-series will likely die slowly, as demand for spinning rust continues to wane. YMMV.

Actually, 2.0 was sent to manufacturing a week before Mars was axed. How you like dem apples. And yeah, 80-90% of former Mars dev engrs were "restructured". I guess the lesson, for those who remain, is "Take a risk on behalf of the company! Get the axe". RIP Netapp. You were once a great place to work.

Question is, does it matter, the leftover will again vote NetApp as the best place to work and the cycle continues ....