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Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

reuters.com

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Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#461

Post by noobermin »

user_7832 wrote: post #431
noobermin wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very sympathetic to this standpoint, but an obvious retort is why don't the engineers become their own boss and do better? What's stopping them?

I'd imagine it's access to capital and resources. I suspect many engineers/professionals (especially in eg consulting or manufacturing) would start their own business if they have the financial stability to do so. A lot of market forces tend to "naturally" create monopolies/oligopolies. For eg if you're the biggest steel plant you can operate efficiently and keep moderate margins, beating any plants not as big (econo…

Haven't software engineering salaries been like 200K for almost a decade? With very little actual need in capital requirements relative to a host of industries with expensive equipment, I'd say of the class of workers most poised to start their own businesses, I'd say you guys are the best placed.

To be a bit honest, I'm a computational scientist who's never seen anything near 100K and likely never will. It's hard to imagine not having around 4 times my salary and not being able to start something myself.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#462

Post by noobermin »

strangegecko wrote: post #450
noobermin wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very sympathetic to this standpoint, but an obvious retort is why don't the engineers become their own boss and do better? What's stopping them?

Engineering and running a company are very different skill sets. Engineers are often not good at Marketing, networking, sales, ... Even if you are good at those, for many companies, it's more about connections than about the ability to build stuff. So if you don't know the right people, it is very difficult to get a foothold.

Sorry I should have specified, engineer here means software engineer/software developer.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#463

Post by eunos »

curioussavage wrote: post #340
ggoo wrote: post #18

> The packages for departing employees will include the equivalent of their full base pay through the end of 2026. Healthcare coverage is different across the globe, and if you’re in the United States, we’ll continue to provide support through the end of the year. We are also vesting equity for departing team members through August 15th, so they receive stock beyond their departure date. And, if departing team member…

Damn. I got two weeks notice and then got shown the door with nothing. And now I get to compete with all these people who are going to be so much less stressed

> compete with all these people who are going to be so much less stressed

Well many of these folks then would prefer to decompress and chill for a few months instead of hitting the recruitment process early.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#464

Post by zelphirkalt »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #326
Snoozle wrote: post #69

"We are our own most demanding customer. Cloudflare’s usage of AI has increased by more than 600% in the last three months alone. Employees across the company from engineering to HR to finance to marketing run thousands of AI agent sessions each day to get their work done. That means we have to be intentional in how we architect our company for the agentic AI era in order to supercharge the value we deliver to our cu…

I will reply here assuming that you posted with good intent. I think that their PR statement is reasonable from an investor perspective. Try to detach yourself from the personal effects of layoffs. In short, they are saying: Thanks to AI, we don't need as many people to run our business. It is pretty clear to me. Sure, you can be angry about the layoffs, but the economics are clear: AI is increasing profitability fas…

I hope this bubble bursts soon. HR people avoiding to do their actual job seems like it is the modus operandi in the majority of businesses these days.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#465

Post by zelphirkalt »

bloppe wrote: post #394
throwaway2037 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will reply here assuming that you posted with good intent. I think that their PR statement is reasonable from an investor perspective. Try to detach yourself from the personal effects of layoffs. In short, they are saying: Thanks to AI, we don't need as many people to run our business. It is pretty clear to me. Sure, you can be angry about the layoffs, but the economics are clear: AI is increasing profitability fas…

> AI is increasing profitability faster than the business is growing I don't understand how this could be the case for Cloudflare specifically. They made their name with DDoS protection and sandboxed hosting. These are exactly the products whose demand rises in lockstep with agent adoption. How could they possibly be allowing all the growth opportunity to slip past them? In times like this, with rising productivity t…

Could be they are actually not doing so well and try to cover it up with the usual AI is god excuses, to fool investors.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#466

Post by chakintosh »

AloysB wrote: post #135

This is awkward. Exhibit A - September 2025 - "Help build the future" - Cloudflare hires 1111 interns to "help build the future" [ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-1111-intern-program/ ] Exhibit B - May 2026 - "Building for the future" - Cloudflare lays off 1100 people, about 20% of their workforce to "continue building the future" [ https://blog.cloudflare.com/building-for-the-future/ ] I'll finish on this quo…

Opus 4.6 was released between those dates

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#467

Post by sourcecodeplz »

stevenhuang wrote: post #400
throwaway2037 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

When someone has already demonstrated they can do the work, what additional value do you think them getting a degree will bring to a company?

Sometimes the degree is needed in order for the company to be allowed to pay him over a specific amount/scale.

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#468

Post by frigg »

AloysB wrote: post #135

This is awkward. Exhibit A - September 2025 - "Help build the future" - Cloudflare hires 1111 interns to "help build the future" [ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-1111-intern-program/ ] Exhibit B - May 2026 - "Building for the future" - Cloudflare lays off 1100 people, about 20% of their workforce to "continue building the future" [ https://blog.cloudflare.com/building-for-the-future/ ] I'll finish on this quo…

So they basically fired all the interns? Can anyone who works or knows someone who works for Cloudflare can confirm?

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#469

Post by hazn »

piperswe wrote: post #7

Welp, looks like I’m affected. If anyone is looking to hire a systems engineer with distributed systems and load balancing experience, shoot me an email at @piperswe.me :/ I’ll update this with a resume link tonight…

https://x.com/mgill25/status/2052639259924844894?s=20

Re: Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce

#470

Post by chasd00 »

user34283 wrote: post #437
cyanydeez wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The skeptical assumption is they need to pay for the AI bills, not that the AI use is actually providing the promises CEOs are making.

If you listen to people on HN you could think AI is not increasing productivity or is even having a net negative effect. I think the reality is different. In this thread I saw the resume of an engineer affected by this Cloudflare layoff. In the resume he claimed that adopting opencode in his workflow, he shipped an integration in half the time it took peers without AI assistance for similar projects.

I’m sitting in an airport after spending a week with a client. They’ve killed off one of their enterprise saas subscriptions with an internal ai assisted effort and are looking to kill more. Granted, they are extremely competent but software isn’t their business. There may be something to the saaspocolypse.
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