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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

#121

Post by susumukodai »

oofta-boofta wrote: post #15
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.

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

That was my eventual attitude for a certain three-letter tech company I worked a string of contract assignments at. My thought was if/when I found a better/permanent position elsewhere, I would give them exactly the same advance notice they were giving me (effectively "I'm not coming back on Monday, where do you want me to send your laptop?")

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

#122

Post by susumukodai »

noelsusman wrote: post #87
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.

My plan is to save enough money to at least quasi-retire in my 50s.

My plan is to make sure my last job is in a southern state, so when I'm living in a cardboard box on a street corner it's at least warm...

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

#123

Post by ferminaut »

vaidhy wrote: post #75
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.

Just muscles and bones without fat is also dangerous. I think we should get out this thinking that only thing needed is engineering and sales. It works for a company just starting up.. but as you grow larger, there are many other roles that are equally critical.

I would assume there is a lot of overlap in these "general and administrative" roles between IBM and RedHat. I'd guess more of this work will be moved to existing roles within IBM?

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

#124

Post by tky »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #73

The article says IBM has laid of 5,000 and has hired 7,000 - sounds to me like typical IBM shenanigans to replace expensive employees with cheap ones. When I was there the gimmick was that you either relocated to a third world country and took a local wage, or you resigned.

Exactly.

As good a time as any to fold RH into the regularly-scheduled “Resource Action” cadence and deflect upset onto general economic factors.

No matter the sense of autonomy given by IBM, acquired companies will inevitably be subject to the mighty “RA” (aka layoff) cycle.

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

#125

Post by jorf »

tapoxi wrote: post #120
rwmj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least GNOME 2 was usable.

GNOME these days is pretty great. Quick tap of the super key and then type to launch something. Super left, right, or up arrow to snap to the side or maximize. Ctrl-alt left/right to switch workspaces. Doing that while holding shift will move the current selected window to the next workspace. Plus GNOME 3 introduced the concept of extensions, which are as powerful as the old Firefox extensions were. You can change li…

It is pretty great and I use it daily, but there are some questionable things... Like how we can't Alt+Space+N to minimize a window anymore. That has been a hotkey on every Windows and Linux OS since forever.

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

#127

Post by samstave »

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…

When I was at Mirantis and implementing Openstack for a customer... it was IBM partnered with RedHat and Intel and the absolute ridiculousness of IBM (old) engineers/PMs attempting to translate deployment into their language was nothing short of suicide inducing.

IBM, Intel and RedHat should never touch eachother.

And this is coming from someone who spawned LinuxCare.

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

#128

Post by samstave »

oefnak wrote: post #77
edgyquant wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet it’s more than a 50% drop from the average of the last twelve quarters.

Why would you fire people if you're still growing?

Because FUCK YOU, thats why...

#GoldenParachute

[THIS ~~PAGE~~ CUBICLE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ~~BLANK~~ UNSTAFFED]

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

#129

Post by nickstinemates »

op00to wrote: post #107
nickstinemates wrote: post #56

I didn't notice Matt Hicks became CEO of Red Hat. Congrats to him. We worked together on the Docker / Red Hat Partnership 10 years ago when he was in Engineering leadership. From an Engineer to CEO. Says a lot about Red Hat and its priorities.

I'm not so sure now is the time to congratulate the guy at the wheel for Red Hat's first major layoff.

I think it lends more credence to the words in the article; this is a reduction in G&A while R&D is unaffected.

I've never been accused of being a RH fanboy. Layoffs are tragic to hear and observe. This one seems limited.

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

#130

Post by garbagecoder »

clambirty wrote: post #119
garbagecoder wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the best answer ITT. Union-busting tech people is easy though since they appeals to them as uniquely intelligent people who gain nothing from the support of others works most of the time.

Yeah there's a general anti-union sentiment in tech, but I think this is slowly changing as companies continue to screw over tech workers, and we as tech workers start to realize that we actually aren't safe from the fall out of incompetent executives. How many companies this year started layoffs with recruiters, HR, and admin staff and are now turning to laying off software engineers?

Yes, I think you're right and Gen-Z in general seems more open to it.

I've worked several union and/or government jobs. Yes, it sucks that you end up carrying some of your co-workers. But knowing that your family isn't going to starve because your new manager doesn't like your outfit is nice.

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