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Travis CI Is Laying Off Senior Engineer Staff

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Re: Travis CI Is Laying Off Senior Engineer Staff

#41
post #19
post #9

From the tweet [0] it seems there is going to be a huge tech debt. I don't know how Idera is planning to expand upon the acquisition after letting go people like this. > Some know the skinny on dozens of different open source projects and ecosystems, others understand run time and dep mgmt for like 17 languages and even more tooling, and automated image mastering to handle it all. > Others are rewriting what it means…

From the previous discussion, it seems like Idera's mode of operation is stopping active development on the product, and maintaining it more or less as-is as long as there are people using it. Then it's not necessary to reduce tech debt.

This same pattern happens with 'dying' ERP software. The users aren't going anywwhere, unless you for ce them.

It takes years and millions of dollars to switch ERP platoforms.

Buy the company for...what a year or two (or even less) worth of contracts equals.

Fire all the developers. Keep a skeleton support staff. Fire sales/marketing. In-house everything else. Then just keep getting paid by customners until they all finally go away.

Re: Travis CI Is Laying Off Senior Engineer Staff

#42

I hope no one minds a quick plug... sourcehut has a build service with a comparible UX to Travis CI, but more powerful in some respects. https://sourcehut.org Get in touch if you want some tips on moving from Travis to builds.sr.ht. I wish I could hire some of the recently unemployed, but I just don't have the budget. If you want me to circulate your resumes in Philly, feel free to email them to me. Best of luck.

"comparable UX to travis" is enticing to me, as I am fond of travis. Where do I find pricing information? (Was hoping for the standard "Pricing" link). Does it require a repo hosted on sourehut too, or can the CI be used independently?

There's an open todo ticket to add a public pricing breakdown - right now you only see it after signup. This is what the page looks like:

https://sr.ht/lS5M.png

I'll see if I can't get public pricing info up later today.

>Does it require a repo hosted on sourehut too, or can the CI be used independently?

You can use the CI independently. Right now there's a GitHub integration and I'm open to adding more :)

Re: Travis CI Is Laying Off Senior Engineer Staff

#43
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Yep. We were terminated by Idera without even our managers knowing." Not sure if thats douchebaggy. I've seen several layoffs like this, where everyone finds out at the same time not by levels.

You having seen it doesn't mean it isn't awful. Never mistake "common", or even "not rare", with "good" It also doesn't sound like everyone found out at the same time.

[deleted]

Re: Travis CI Is Laying Off Senior Engineer Staff

#45
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the previous discussion, it seems like Idera's mode of operation is stopping active development on the product, and maintaining it more or less as-is as long as there are people using it. Then it's not necessary to reduce tech debt.

This same pattern happens with 'dying' ERP software. The users aren't going anywwhere, unless you for ce them. It takes years and millions of dollars to switch ERP platoforms. Buy the company for...what a year or two (or even less) worth of contracts equals. Fire all the developers. Keep a skeleton support staff. Fire sales/marketing. In-house everything else. Then just keep getting paid by customners until they all…

You forgot the last step. Once you finally collapse, sell all source code and licenses to use the software to the last remaining customers.

Re: Travis CI Is Laying Off Senior Engineer Staff

#47

I hope no one minds a quick plug... sourcehut has a build service with a comparible UX to Travis CI, but more powerful in some respects. https://sourcehut.org Get in touch if you want some tips on moving from Travis to builds.sr.ht. I wish I could hire some of the recently unemployed, but I just don't have the budget. If you want me to circulate your resumes in Philly, feel free to email them to me. Best of luck.

This is a bait-and-switch for most of us who are used to free Travis service, as your offering is not free.

Re: Travis CI Is Laying Off Senior Engineer Staff

#48
post #25

Whelp, I might be looking at CircleCI vs TravisCI again.

You should have already been doing this, before the acquisition. It felt like Travis had been on auto-pilot for a long time. It was painfully obvious to me and our team that Circle is actually hungry and constantly innovating and wanted our business. We moved one project to Circle, waited a bit, and then moved everything away from Travis. Don't regret it one bit.

Hard to want to keep updating your working CI solution for your open source stuff while holding down a job and life and everything else. :)

Re: Travis CI Is Laying Off Senior Engineer Staff

#49

I hope no one minds a quick plug... sourcehut has a build service with a comparible UX to Travis CI, but more powerful in some respects. https://sourcehut.org Get in touch if you want some tips on moving from Travis to builds.sr.ht. I wish I could hire some of the recently unemployed, but I just don't have the budget. If you want me to circulate your resumes in Philly, feel free to email them to me. Best of luck.

This is a bait-and-switch for most of us who are used to free Travis service, as your offering is not free.

Well, during the alpha it's free, but you're right that it will eventually require payment. But the incentives are better this way anyway: if it were free then in a few years we could very well be having this conversation in the wake of layoffs at sourcehut following an aquisition. Sourcehut isn't based on the VC grow-until-you-burst model. If you pay for your account, you can be confident it's sustainable and aligned with your interests.

Also, if anyone has trouble affording an account, please send me an email. I don't want anyone to be left out because they can't afford the subscription fee, we'll sort something out.

Re: Travis CI Is Laying Off Senior Engineer Staff

#50
post #5

I called it. The money men have praises Idera for their new and innovative approach to software development. Also know has fixed cost devlopement to the lowest bider. If you want stop this type of practice please don't sign multi year contracts. That is stage two. This is where they get their value. Without the contracts they can't use it as leverage to take out huge debts -- where they get their value from. If the f…

There's a lot of problems to go around. If you're a founder, you're usually going to cash out for the right price. Everyone has their price. No one wants to grind forever. This isn't a problem if you're profitable enough that you can hold forever (Basecamp). If you're an investor, you're struggling for returns right now (to your point about interest rates and the Fed). You're going to squeeze whatever you can get you…

I'd like to see a real discussion among the readership of this news site about the kind of companies people want to build. Do you want to create a great place to work and grow that builds value that scales smoothly, or a unicorn that makes VCs, Private Equity, and the douchebag CEO you hired from Cisco rich and you without a job? If the answer is b, that is fine, but technical founders and employees should have their minds and eyes open about how it works.
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