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Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

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Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#31

Post by marcodiego »

loudmax wrote: post #23
marcodiego wrote: post #9

Hope it doesn't hurt the GNOME project. The IBM-Redhat buyout should have been something similar to Apple-NeXT.

I hope it doesn't hurt any open source projects, but if there's there's one project that has bloat to trim it's GNOME. It's good that there's experimentation happening with Linux desktops, but that experimentation should not be happening on an "enterprise" distribution. The default RHEL desktop should be boring and reliable, not flashy and experimental like GNOME.

GNOME is maintained (also) by a small number of Redhat employees. That is far from what can be called bloat. The latest 44 version was released just recently and is much more "evolution than revolution". GNOME development is mature, UI changes require designers approval and far from what could be called "flashy and experimental".

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#32

Post by orra »

trabant00 wrote: post #14

> He said the layoffs would be “just under 4% in total.” > “We will not reduce roles directly selling to customers or building our products,” Hicks wrote. They are not touching development or sales. Sounds like they are trimming some fat.

> They are not touching development or sales. Sounds like they are trimming some fat.

I don't think you can say that with such certainty. This could lead to developers spending more time doing admin, that was previously done by other people.

Regardless, it sucks for the people being lade off, even if they are not touching development or sales.

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#33

Post by peruvian »

reaperducer wrote: post #30
foobarian wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Cut expensive (old) employees. Anyone have tips to avoid this? I keep getting promotions and raises and it's all very nice but makes me worried about being closer to the top of the list when the next round of cuts needs to happen... Just this year I got an unsolicited bump because I was "below market avg TCO." You can't just say "no thanks" to that.

Anyone have tips to avoid this? I keep getting promotions and raises and it's all very nice but makes me worried about being closer to the top of the list when the next round of cuts needs to happen Make your self invisibly essential to the company. Do things or have skills that nobody else does. The sorts of niche items that the company needs, but not enough to hire a second person to do them. But also be "invisible…

Eh, good advice but I have seen "essential" people or teams get laid off, even at the detriment of the company. Management and C-suite don't care - they face no consequences.

I echo the other comment saying just save up as much money.

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#34

Post by neilv »

> “We will not reduce roles directly selling to customers or building our products,” Hicks wrote.

What does "building" mean here?

If an enterprise running RHEL has an urgent mission-critical problem, can they get the same world-class experts parachuting in?

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#35

Post by athammer »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #27
mathattack wrote: post #6

Welcome to life under IBM. They’re in the business of a financially engineered shrinkage. This is what happens when innovation and growth stops. What you see from IBM: - Cut expensive (old) employees. - Market everything as the New thing. (Watson) - Audit your customers. Settle by forcing them to buy the New thing even if they don’t need it. - Current and former execs go on book tours. - Buy back shares. This is all…

> expensive (old) employees This legend needs to stop. It has been demonstrated time and time again that employees that stay the longest are the leaat paid. https://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2014/06/22/employee...

This article doesn’t seem to account for stock compensation which can greatly incentivize staying at a company for a long time

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#36

Post by rwmj »

orra wrote: post #28
loudmax wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope it doesn't hurt any open source projects, but if there's there's one project that has bloat to trim it's GNOME. It's good that there's experimentation happening with Linux desktops, but that experimentation should not be happening on an "enterprise" distribution. The default RHEL desktop should be boring and reliable, not flashy and experimental like GNOME.

Look, I soured on GNOME when GNOME 3 was released. But it's unfair to call GNOME "flashy and experimental". Modern GNOME looks contemporary to its peers. GNOME 2, in contrast, would look very dated.

At least GNOME 2 was usable.

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#37

Post by rwmj »

seanw444 wrote: post #2

Really hope this doesn't affect their development of VirtIO drivers and related virtualization technology. Although being realistic, it probably will.

This isn't going to affect virtio at all. The drivers are vitally important to virtualization and anyway the layoffs affect back office staff like IT, not product development or customer support. In fact it's rather the opposite, virtio is being implemented in more and more hardware.

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#38

Post by scarface74 »

foobarian wrote: post #7
mathattack wrote: post #6

Welcome to life under IBM. They’re in the business of a financially engineered shrinkage. This is what happens when innovation and growth stops. What you see from IBM: - Cut expensive (old) employees. - Market everything as the New thing. (Watson) - Audit your customers. Settle by forcing them to buy the New thing even if they don’t need it. - Current and former execs go on book tours. - Buy back shares. This is all…

> - Cut expensive (old) employees. Anyone have tips to avoid this? I keep getting promotions and raises and it's all very nice but makes me worried about being closer to the top of the list when the next round of cuts needs to happen... Just this year I got an unsolicited bump because I was "below market avg TCO." You can't just say "no thanks" to that.

> Anyone have tips to avoid this

Never depend on your job for your livelihood. Depend on your network. Make sure your skills are in sync with the wider market. Keep your resume up to date and your “career document”. Always be interview ready.

Of course, save and invest money and live in a position of f%%% you.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#39

Post by phkahler »

jrockway wrote: post #8
foobarian wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Cut expensive (old) employees. Anyone have tips to avoid this? I keep getting promotions and raises and it's all very nice but makes me worried about being closer to the top of the list when the next round of cuts needs to happen... Just this year I got an unsolicited bump because I was "below market avg TCO." You can't just say "no thanks" to that.

Live frugally and fully fund your 401k.

Make it a Roth 401k so when unusual things like housing collapse you can pull your principal back out to make a purchase without penalty. Assuming the stock market didn't crash simultaneously.

Re: Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

#40

Post by speeder »

candiddevmike wrote: post #25
oofta-boofta wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work multiple jobs that you do the bare minimum at. Always be interviewing, Q1->Q3 is the best time.

Before the recession, it was a well-known secret among coworkers who was doing this, now when budgets are being slashed these folks are the first to be let go. Please don't do this, you're ruining remote work for everyone. If you really want to, become a contractor and be honest about your situation.

I was fired from my last job partially because a lot of people were doing this and the company decided to make my job be 100% in Office in response. Since the office of my job was literally on the other side of the planet and people there spoke the local language (one I don't know), I got fired.
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