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CircleCI Layoffs

circleci.com

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Re: CircleCI Layoffs

#11

Post by simplotek »

jrockway wrote: post #6

What's the context behind this? I've used CircleCI at many jobs, and I guess people must have moved on to some better tool? What's the better tool?

> What's the context behind this?

From the article:

> Right now, however, there is a ripple effect of uncertainty in our sector. Since the start of Q4, we’ve seen a dramatic shift in how every company’s performance is evaluated. Companies were once praised for growth at all costs. Very rapidly, market expectations have shifted. The emphasis now is on maximizing efficiency.

It sounds like they are cowardly using the Google/Amazon/Twitter workforce decimation campaign as a scapegoat to fire people.

Re: CircleCI Layoffs

#12

Post by indigodaddy »

nocobot wrote: post #4
fasgano wrote: post #2

CircleCI lets go of 17% of their workforce today.

but hey, they get to keep their laptops

They don’t want to pony up $ for the prepaid labels I’m guessing? The laptops are sunk cost anyway and then there’s also the additional overhead of processing the returned laptops with their IT? Man things must be really bad if that’s the case..

Re: CircleCI Layoffs

#14

Post by siquick »

Circle was the first CI/CD tool I used and opened my eyes up to a whole new way of deploying. I haven’t used it for a few years but hope they can find a space.

Re: CircleCI Layoffs

#15

Post by aftbit »

I feel for all the engineers impacted by this layoff, but I do not agree that they are "the best CI/CD platform on the market".

Our small team has moved away from CircleCI for all new projects. We are mostly using Github Actions these days. The major driver was not cost, which was minimal for our team, but the fact that CircleCI keeps breaking our build. In the ~5 years that we have used them, we have experienced at least 3 major breakages, including the migration from v1 to v2 yaml configs and the new docker architecture.

They have strayed far from their early value prop and cause us more headaches than delight. CircleCI, if you are listening, all I want with CI/CD is to forget about it, not have to revisit a working project every year to rearchitect it onto a new builder.

Re: CircleCI Layoffs

#16

Post by edaemon »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #7
jrockway wrote: post #6

What's the context behind this? I've used CircleCI at many jobs, and I guess people must have moved on to some better tool? What's the better tool?

I am not sure about "better" but a lot of people who previously used Travis and Circle use GitHub Actions these days (and maybe azure in the meantime).

It does seem like CI/CD turned out to be less of a product and more of a feature.

Re: CircleCI Layoffs

#17

Post by indigodaddy »

johnrob wrote: post #13
nocobot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but hey, they get to keep their laptops

Surprised that is possible in the age of compliance for certifications (PCI, HIPPA, SOC2, etc).

Was also wondering about this. Perhaps they will push a wipe or a clean reinstall..

Re: CircleCI Layoffs

#18

Post by urbandw311er »

jrockway wrote: post #6

What's the context behind this? I've used CircleCI at many jobs, and I guess people must have moved on to some better tool? What's the better tool?

Just because this comment and/or like of discussion could be perceived as insensitive on a day when people are getting tough news, can I jump in to say that I think it’s more likely to be symptomatic of the general global downturn and current wave of cost-cutting than it is any particular issue with product fit or competitors.

Re: CircleCI Layoffs

#19

Post by hobr »

johnrob wrote: post #13
nocobot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but hey, they get to keep their laptops

Surprised that is possible in the age of compliance for certifications (PCI, HIPPA, SOC2, etc).

If they are using Mobile Device Management (MDM), they can remotely wipe all the laptops before allowing departing staff to keep them.

Re: CircleCI Layoffs

#20

Post by jfengel »

candiddevmike wrote: post #3

> Despite today’s news, we’re confident in our business. I believe we have the right strategy to succeed in the long term. We have the best CI/CD platform on the market by leaps and bounds. We see that success reflected in the continued growth of our business, adding thousands of high-performing engineering teams to our platform over the past 12 months. Clearly that's not the case if you're doing layoffs, no? Wouldn'…

This is how the business cycle works. Companies expand during the booms, so that they can prepare to take on more business than they are currently doing. Eventually somebody realizes that it has all been irrationally exuberant, and a bunch of them get laid off.

This is why the standard economics policy is to try to grow slowly and smoothly rather than have big boom and bust cycles. As the saying goes, the Fed's job is to take the punch bowl away just as the party gets started.

But unfortunately, everybody loves punch, and boos when the Fed takes measures to rein in the economy. The last recession in the US ended in 2009, but the central bankers treated it as a crisis until... until it became a different crisis.

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