I understand that any company’s top priority is to make money. I get that. Laying people off when it wasn’t absolutely necessary during a worldwide crises? I don’t understand that... seems just a little sociopathic
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Sorry, but I don't believe that layoff decisions weren't made without local sr director / director input. Some (most?) directors / Sr directors don't like people who don't just say "yes" & actually do their job of voicing their professional expertise.
Shouldn't take it personal Sonny. Don't blame your manager, as he was just the lowly messenger.
This time the layoff decisions were made 8K miles away in SG. Purely a number$ thing.
Netapp are sociopaths, they promote only obedient people. They act like a criminal organisation, they discriminated against me and had everyone workplace mob me out, and followed by an aggressive covert targeting campaign. Never work for Netapp, this is a criminal organisation, they have deep connections. The worst place to work at.
I was let go this time after > 13 years - I was expecting it. NetApp is not the company it used to be. The downfall began with the arrival of Nimble when a lot of excellent engineers left to work with other really good people who got into that startup early. A steady attrition of good engineers followed to Nimble and other companies.
Years ago, NetApp had big engineering problems to solve - interesting code needed to be written. It is now a solution provider where engineering stitches things together and compiles libraries into the software. Lots of engineers full time job is running benchmarks and giving talks about performance.
Not very rewarding unless you are very new.
Things move frustratingly slowly and an attempt to radically change things, speak up, is looked on as a complaint by quite a few managers.
Good engineers are not valued as much unless you are a visionary (there are some of those still at Netapp) and provide big agendas that expands the empire of the manager/director concerned. I looked for new things to do for 2 years and only one person was alarmed that I was unhappy at work and was thinking of leaving. Everyone who has been there a long time is more concerned about their own employment than retaining good engineers.
You have to play ball, surrender to the current because it can't be changed. My last two managers asked for referrals for req.s - It was laughable to me that they thought their group was worth referring.
The scope for promotion in most groups is low. Several new hires leave after 2-3 years because they don't see a career path where they can rise.
Sad to see the company devolve from where it was 10 years ago.
Layoffs are driven by the stock price, analyst opinions and investor sentiment. Decisions are made for the short term, although it wasn’t that way when I first joined NetApp (before the never ending “transition”).
I made it through many layoffs, finally to get cut when I least expected it. I had so many great coworkers, but most didn’t last long because of poor management. Everyone knew that you couldn’t go to HR with problems because they’d side with management. Employees were given in-depth performance reviews but their managers had little accountability or layoff concerns.
It was frustrating to watch excessive spending in some areas, unnecessary hiring in others, along with unfair layoffs. Not only are layoffs traumatic but it doesn’t make business sense.
It was a great place to work years ago, I hope new management can fix things before it’s too late.
Got laid off this last time.The silver lining to this is I no longer have to grit my teeth daily dealing with aggravating backstabbers who act like everythings hunky dory but all the while they scheme. Im willing to bet Rasputin had a heavy hand in deciding who got laid off.Every org has a Rasputin. Yeah its a toxic fake kumbaya culture with a lot of managers relishing their influence talking nasty about those not around.If the reason was to cut costs I would understand but based on the layoffs I managed to survive before people would waste no time spending like there wass no tomorrow on frivolous things like fancy dinners and events all in the name of fake kumbaya team building.You would think Finance would have called them out on this behavior. I imagine because of covid opportunities to spend spend spend like theres no tomorrow are limited but just you wait and see.They will find creative ways in 3, 2, 1.....
Like Michael Corleone said - it’s not personal Sonny it’s business.