Thread regarding VMware layoffs

Post from TheLayoff.com

Yea, exactly. VMware's problems are not at all unique, they're sadly ubiquitous across the industry. In general the company has the great culture, you can't argue it has some good. But haters gonna hate. ;-)
I don't choose to willfully ignore the issues with leadership, I didn't say anything about leadership, I would love it if things actually got fixed instead of people just doing nothing and being passive aggressive negative nancies like some of you here seem to be. And yes it was a challenge to say the least not only from management and directors but also the technical side ie getting software designed logically and efficiently, architecture and system design were blocked by committees and ego and quite frankly insecurity and fear from some of the devs who maybe didn't deserve to be here, but show me a company where this problem does not exist. Despite all this I and the better engineers managed to get good work done. You want to clean shop, get rid of the people actually making it awful, not just a random clean sweep of 90% of us which seems inevitable now.

Also apologies for not mentioning there's a spectrum. I just visibly see a lot of groveling towards directors and VPs, which is distasteful, and then strange overly cynical people that laugh it up and almost celebrate their coworkers being laid off, some of those same people might be here replying to me lol.

The cynicism in general I got to the post is strange but not unexpected, also saying I want to blame DEI initiatives after BC fires me and 90% of the org, huh? Have you lost your mind? Some of you are not okay. For the harsher replies, no one gets hired without interviews in my org, I interviewed the technicals/ devs and made them do similar coding problems (data structures, SQL, etc) as you'd find in a typical Google interview. For those laughing at "amazing work," the implication that VMware cannot produce any working code, come on. We hit all our targets and I designed and implemented things that worked well, so you're right we did not revolutionize that much although there is an innovative culture, there's RADIO and tons of stuff going on, personally with my teams there were some forays into Blockchain and Multi-Cloud and AI and many of my colleagues got hired by Google due to their work here, so I guess you could say we did not change the world and those projects may never see the light of day but the results were always good. You could argue yes that a lot of the work hasn't changed the world for a very long time. Then again, how many life changing services has Google come out with since 2010? I don't know, but they are not popping out new Google search, Gmail, Google Maps level products regularly.

@OP+1nSHqR6H

Personally I never laughed at anyone that cares and is worried about layoffs. The one thing I do not have sympathy for is when people just get on this board to moan how cr-p their job, their management and so on is.

If you hate it, leave - simple. If the reason is you hate this because of the acquisition - leave. It is what it is now.

You see, everyone is responsible for their own future so act like it.

But here is the thing. I KNOW of some people that 'cared' and scared about layoffs. Because they have their life adjusted to the package and income of VMware.

Some news - VMware is legacy tech - whether you believe it or not. I earned 100k+ with bonus in PSO UK. Close to 120k in other parts of PS ...

And that's why it is scary to work with legacy tech like VMware - the VERY SAME jobs pay now 45k-60k max in central London. WELL below of what VMware pays those that literally do nothing but design and implement VMware tech.

I can only speak about the UK of course and those VMware billable jobs, but that's the reality.

So yea - I can see why you are scared, potentially looking at cutting your wage in half outside of VMware.

Another thing to consider for people that want to wait for layoffs to get the package. Have a look at linkedin - jobs are not coming up daily - a LOT of companies going through layoffs, including AWS, Google, Microsoft etc., laying off 1000s of people.

So the competition is already hard as it is - if you wait for the layoffs to start / be finished and you get the sack - your competition will increase by the 100s if not 1000s so decide for yourself what's best for you.

Vmware is dying for six years now. .In the last 3 years many employees just showed visible effectiveness not real effectiveness without visiting/VMW offices. Now its time to say goodbye to old sick VMware that was the best hypervisor company. May the name VMware will rest in peace and honor with the panteon of the big names; Nortel, Nokia, Blackberry, Motorola, Xerox, Kodak, Cabeltron, Bay-Networks, 3Com, Stratacom, Codex, Wellfleet, NCR, Oliveti, Atari, Synoptics, Fo-e, Red Hat, KVM and many more.
But many of you are young and talented workers and you will recover soon with or without Bcom, like your mates in the panteon names from the past. So be happy don't worry. All is for good.

How about they do some "amazing work" on those severance packages.

It is amazing how little work managers and VPs do, amazing work!

I haven't seen any "amazing work" done since about 2017, and that's probably being too generous.

"Amazing work", I'm still laughing. I will probably be laughing for most of the day.

I am looking forward to seeing you back here complaining about Broadcom when
they let you go.

No complaining. Expecting it. I hope BC does what Dell and the BOD should have done -- clean up the mess that has been made.

I don't see the VMW environment the way you do. It's not a binary situation. There's lots of alternative perspectives in between the two extreme of employees you describe.

I also don't see much laughing at people who want to hold on to the memory of the amazing things the employees collectively achieved, but are now in the distant past. In contrast, I do imagine more folks laughing with each other at the executive compensation windfall for a VMW leadership team that was on autopilot for many years.

Or you choose willfully to ignore the corruption, the incompetence, the hiring of a person's labels over their skill, ...

Is this seriously the first time people have been exposed to this? Is this your first job out of school? Having worked for startups, global corporations, and defense contractors, this is par for the course. I would even say that VMware is better than most (ahem, Big 4).

You will find the same thing, in a slightly different variety, at every job you go to. And you will find the same thing in Broadcom.

"Or you choose willfully to ignore the corruption, the incompetence, the hiring of a person's labels over their skill..."

I am looking forward to seeing you back here complaining about Broadcom when they let you go. And there will be no DEI to blame for you not getting what you think you "deserve" so let's see who you will blame this time.

If you still care, then you are going through life with your eyes closed.

Or you choose willfully to ignore the corruption, the incompetence, the hiring of a person's labels over their skill, management's 100% focus on not fixing anything that is busted, and focus on 'fixing' things that are not broken, vacuous phrases that mean what you want them to mean ("The main thing"), the hiring of people with no interviews, the people who have been given technical power either not contributing to any product (ever!), or having an inability to actually deliver anything that works, the people hired to help resolve internal IT problems who have no idea what they are doing, etc.

If that makes you happy, enjoy. I pine for the days gone by.