Few in my team were laid off and they were extremely good at their work. I am shocked with the decision taken to lay them off in spite of their top notch work. Only reason I can think of is that they were not in agreement with their boss on few aspects. Can that be a reason good enough for the boss to target them? I can only smell politics here because none of the boss’s favorites are touched even with their mediocre performance.
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You guys are over thinking all of this and giving management waaaay to much credit for being logical in a business sense. They were told to lay off people. It comes down to two thing: the bottom line and self preservation. Period. They're not concerned with what you know, how hard you work, or even what you lend to the bottom line or how much you make. It doesn't matter. You are a line item on a spreadsheet. HR will be careful to whack people across all age groups too so as not to show discrimination.
OP – you don't say what product you're working on.
When an old product transitions from a growth & investment stage to a declining stage, the skill sets needed are very different. Long before an official end-of-life announcement they may end the major innovation. During the glide into obsolescence there isn't much need for top talent. In fact, if the high performers are still around to notice and comment, that isn't helpful. What's needed in this phase of a product's life is engineers who are a solid average, without too much ambition. The heavy hitters who are out to conquer the world won't stick around long once this is clear.
Ask yourself: would the good ones who were let go have been happy to stick around if innovation is over? Are the good ones who are still here lifers more likely to stick around?
If your answers are “no, yes” then we have a possible explanation
If this could be what's happening on your product, its best not to notice.
I have no insight or comments on other people's situations. I speak only for myself, and wish everyone affected the best of luck.
I was let go Tuesday, and I consider myself to be a very high performer. I've gotten RSUs every year I've been at NetApp, and most years very generously. ICP was typically well above the target (every year except this year). I don't say that to brag, on the interwebs you don't know who I am anyway. But my part of the org pays for performance and they have consistenlty sent plenty of love my way.
Numerous people were stunned to hear I was let go. Bewildered people couldn't help but ask me why, as if I had some dark admission to make.
So why was I let go? I am not certain, but I have an idea.
I had been very candid with management about some things regarding my personal situation and my desires. They may have interpreted that to mean I was looking for an external job. I wonder if that was a factor. It would be perfectly reasonable for them to think they should not keep room in their budget for me, assuming I'd be gone in a few months anyway. If so, the ironic thing is, I was not looking for a job. After this happened it took me some time to find a very old resume to start from.
I had basically decided to stick around until around 2030.
My reactions are: surprise, amusement, and curiosity.
There are 3 people I would like to ask why (none of whom are my immediate manager, who was truly shocked).
I am confident there was not any vindictive motivations in their decision to let me go. I've always known two of them to be unemotional, highly logical decision makers, faithfully seeking what they feel is best for the org (the third is fine too, but not unemotional).
I'm not concerned for myself. I have plenty of references.
As you try to figure out why certain people were let go, remember these situations are very unique. Someone has to make hard decisions even though they know they have incomplete understanding. Some unfortunate outcomes are unavoidable at this scale of action.
I've said enough that a handful of people will have a guess on who I am. But hopefully nothing in this post upsets them, since that is not my goal. If you 3 discuss this, no worries guys. No hard feelings here. We all misclick from time to time. Or maybe I'm overlooking something and you didn't misclick. that's cool too. But no hard feelings on this one. In the right circumstances, I'd hire you.
Agree, Lay-off is common and that’s acceptable. However what’s not fair is keeping all the leaders and targeting ICs. How fair and just is that? Why was redundancy not looked into at leadership level? Why were they not impacted? They only portray that they are improving the whole world but that’s not true.
Netapp, keep your Boulder directors responsible for your downfall safe. Few on our team have already decided to start looking out. Enjoy having a bunch of leaders who are undeserving and will shamelessly take part in axing out core knowledgeable folks next year also. How are they deserving to axe engineers? These directors know nothing other than play politics, hire from their previous companies, save their low performing favorites, pretend they are improving process by renaming a process that already exists, portray a small work as big to their upper management. I used to be a proud Netappian once but now I feel sad. Equality is non-existent and missing. Target was core engineers and not leaders who were the people responsible for the downfall of the process and the org
Boulder leadership s—s and laying them off would have saved a lot of cost. People who made the worst decisions which led to this situation were the ones to axe those who did not bow down to them and their c-appy vision
Well who else is going to facilitate the reorgs every other month? It takes a lot of directors to handle that!
In Boulder IIRC there are 2 directors in HCI, 1 senior director+director for a small org like quality. Is this not redundant? Netapp chucks out core devs working on a critical project and retain these leaders who are c-ap? Why do we need so many directors? Are they not redundant? Netapp is losing its charm
"LOTS of toxic politics going on, especially in Boulder."
Could not agree more, especially for Boulder. Why didn't they release the leader of HCI? Smells of politics. Senior leadership has ruined the culture & driven off good people, but they don't seem to care. There is no communication, no leadership, no vision.
And why does NetApp continue to hire executives if they need to cut costs & refocus?
Lots of good ICs were let go when they really need to look at the top of these organizations.
Directors in Boulder are waste, political, manipulative and did not lead by example. Team had to bear the brunt of Netapp hiring c-appy directors who live in a self obsessed world
Definitely need a change in upper level (Director & above) management. They're the ones leading, yet the folks closest to the work paid the price today.
Our team was thinking the same today. We had and still have 2 directors in our org which is not needed. I wonder why they were not impacted if this was all done to eliminate redundancy.
With the leaders left in Boulder,it is going to be more c-appy, wait n watch
What about directors and senior directors? Are they all safe? If they are, then it is BS. There are redundant directors in many teams. Individual contributors are targeted for what ? Netapp will Profit more if they stop targeting ICs and look at redundant roles at leadership instead
LOTS of toxic politics going on, especially in Boulder.
This was not a mass layoff, it was a VERY typical 5ish percent. The reasons can be varied from roles being eliminated, projects being de-prioritized, politics, etc. It wasn't for financial reasons. When companies do that, you see 10%+ layoffs. This is NetApp and most large firms (including VMware, Dell, etc) churning. It's really not more complicated than that.
I don’t understand either. I see a similar situation in our team where the best performers were chucked out and they don’t s— up
Diversity! Now stop whining and enjoy your privilege.
That b—s— goes all the way to the top, with stack-ranking. Working on a s-xy project? You get 1s and 2s. Otherwise, you get 3s and 4s.