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Opera sends 90 out the door

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Re: Opera sends 90 out the door

#11

Post by bobsy »

gcp wrote: post #5

I thought their press release of less than a week ago said those people were supposed to improve WebKit :-) Can imagine that quite a few of those fired would have been tough to motivate, though. Nobody likes seeing their lifework put out and shot.

I thought that all the developer time they are saving would go into improving the browser and only a small number of people would be contributing to WebKit. I.e. browser improves faster as less time is spent working on the browser engine.

Now it is obvious. Cost saving! Which is fine, just a bit disappointing. Especially considering how they have 3 products. Opera, Opera Mini and the new Tablet Browser (I don't know if this is replacing Mini)

Re: Opera sends 90 out the door

#12

Post by btipling »

runarb wrote: post #7
btipling wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Difficult to make it out in the translation but if they laid off engineers good enough to work on Presto they must not be a technology company any more. They must be transitioning to something else entirely, as your technical team is an asset and browser engine engineering requires some skill so you if you had to downsize you probably wouldn't want to get rid of those guys. Although I guess they can't be cheap. But I…

Many from the core team have worked there since 1995. They may also have thought that this was a good time to move on to other ventures. The unemployment rate her in Norway are around 3%[0], and probably 0% among it-engineers, so thus guys will be picked up right away. 0: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z8o7pt6rd5uqa6_...

My comment was more about the company, and less so about the people. Mass layoffs with severance does not portray the situation as employees choosing to leave.

Re: Opera sends 90 out the door

#13

Post by avar »

runarb wrote: post #9
gcp wrote: post #5

I thought their press release of less than a week ago said those people were supposed to improve WebKit :-) Can imagine that quite a few of those fired would have been tough to motivate, though. Nobody likes seeing their lifework put out and shot.

A culture crash may have contributed to that so many are leaving. According to the Opera CEO, iOS and Android are the future for Opera now[0]. One could argue that Opera now are in more need of 25 years old iOS developers, that 40+ C++ specialists. 0: http://translate.google.no/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=...

    > One could argue that Opera now are in
    > more need of 25 years old iOS developers,
    > that 40+ C++ specialists.
One could, but would one not be assuming that their 20+ years of experience wouldn't more than make up for whatever platform-specific skills they'd need to train on which could surely be picked up in less than a year?

Re: Opera sends 90 out the door

#14

Post by dagw »

btipling wrote: post #3
justinschuh wrote: post #2

Good browser engine devs are very hard to come by. I expect they won't have too much trouble landing on their feet.

Difficult to make it out in the translation but if they laid off engineers good enough to work on Presto they must not be a technology company any more. They must be transitioning to something else entirely, as your technical team is an asset and browser engine engineering requires some skill so you if you had to downsize you probably wouldn't want to get rid of those guys. Although I guess they can't be cheap. But I…

From what I could gather from the article (i read Norwegian) they closed down the Presto department by offering everybody either a move to a different department (mainly mobile and desktop clients) or a severance package. At this point 50-70 people chose to leave. Since then they've also interdependently gotten rid of various other, both technical and non-technical people, for a grand total of 90.

I just don't understand what kind of crazy thinking would go into this.

It sounds like most of the engineers simply didn't want to move from core render engine and javascript interpreter development to more front-end client development.

Re: Opera sends 90 out the door

#15

Post by gcp »

runarb wrote: post #9
gcp wrote: post #5

I thought their press release of less than a week ago said those people were supposed to improve WebKit :-) Can imagine that quite a few of those fired would have been tough to motivate, though. Nobody likes seeing their lifework put out and shot.

A culture crash may have contributed to that so many are leaving. According to the Opera CEO, iOS and Android are the future for Opera now[0]. One could argue that Opera now are in more need of 25 years old iOS developers, that 40+ C++ specialists. 0: http://translate.google.no/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=...

One could argue that Opera now are in more need of 25 years old iOS developers, that 40+ C++ specialists.

To do what, make more Angry Birds clones?

Engineers that spent 15 years working on every possible mobile device aren't suddenly magically unable to start working on a new one.

Re: Opera sends 90 out the door

#17

Post by 0x0 »

Supermighty wrote: post #16

I wonder how many of these Mozilla will pickup on the cheap. Browser rendering engine seems such a specialized skill, where else could these people go?

Oh come on. It's not like these guys went to Browser Rendering U, and that's all they know!

Re: Opera sends 90 out the door

#18

Post by MatthewPhillips »

runarb wrote: post #9
gcp wrote: post #5

I thought their press release of less than a week ago said those people were supposed to improve WebKit :-) Can imagine that quite a few of those fired would have been tough to motivate, though. Nobody likes seeing their lifework put out and shot.

A culture crash may have contributed to that so many are leaving. According to the Opera CEO, iOS and Android are the future for Opera now[0]. One could argue that Opera now are in more need of 25 years old iOS developers, that 40+ C++ specialists. 0: http://translate.google.no/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=...

This comes across as incredibly ageist. Why do the iOS developers have to be 25?

Re: Opera sends 90 out the door

#19

Post by rplnt »

avar wrote: post #13
runarb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A culture crash may have contributed to that so many are leaving. According to the Opera CEO, iOS and Android are the future for Opera now[0]. One could argue that Opera now are in more need of 25 years old iOS developers, that 40+ C++ specialists. 0: http://translate.google.no/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=...

> One could argue that Opera now are in > more need of 25 years old iOS developers, > that 40+ C++ specialists. One could, but would one not be assuming that their 20+ years of experience wouldn't more than make up for whatever platform-specific skills they'd need to train on which could surely be picked up in less than a year?

Assuming they want to use their skills that way.

Re: Opera sends 90 out the door

#20

Post by dagw »

rplnt wrote: post #19
avar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One could argue that Opera now are in > more need of 25 years old iOS developers, > that 40+ C++ specialists. One could, but would one not be assuming that their 20+ years of experience wouldn't more than make up for whatever platform-specific skills they'd need to train on which could surely be picked up in less than a year?

Assuming they want to use their skills that way.

Indeed. At least from the article it sounds like everybody was given the option to move to other projects, mainly client side mobile and desktop development, but a significant portion of the engineers turned down the offer.
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