It is a FACT that right now the infrastructure business in a state of turmoil and disruption. Anyone that thinks they are immune (in large businesses, or in startups) is delusional. There are macro forces at play, from Open Source, Public Cloud, new workload types. convergence of stacks into complete offers, SaaS, wide global disparity and change in GDP growth rates, new economic models – and much, much more.
Today I found out about a startup with some friends that is going through some unfortunate restructuring – which prompted this blog post.
Likewise a lot of ink got written on EMC’s own “beginning of year” restructuring that took place at the beginning of the year. We’ve done some form of restructuring for the last few years, and this year was roughly in the same ballpark.
… and something similar recently affected VMware, where I was surprised to see the impact to some of VMware’s teams – but I’m sure it’s part of a larger plan on where to focus, and invest.
As hard as it is to say – during a time of disruption, everyone (large and small) has a duty to be really vigilant and constantly be shifting, moving, rebalancing, and making hard (very hard) decisions on where to invest and de-invest.
I’ve also found that when these things happen – good people are impacted – sometimes because their geography is disproportionately hit, or their job function is changing/moving. As much as possible, everyone scrambles (I know I do) to catch as many people as possible.
I can say that because I understand personally. When I think back on my career – I’ve been restructured/laid off/RIFed 3 times. One time I had to lay off my whole team, then fire myself, and close the door behind me.
It’s simply not a time to be static (individually or at the corporate level). And consider – while very hard on the people affected – the worst move is to just try to “buckle and bear down” to get through the storm. Try that, and ultimately you hurt more people It’s critical for the larger group, the larger corpus of the business to move, to adapt, to shift.
Speaking of ink, one article got written specifically about VCE and the Santa Clara office. I spent time with the team there last week – as I wanted to talk to them face. Of all the EMC locations with a heavy VCE presence, the Bay Area office happened to be impacted the most heavily. We had a good, healthy dialog – and I’m glad that insofar as I can see/impact – EMC has worked hard to try to treat everyone restructured with as much respect as possible. The people deserve it.
But – there is another important part of the story – something I really didn’t visualize until you look at the shape of the business zooming out.
Forgive my chicken scratch, but wanted to get this out quickly. What this shows is that over the course of a year, you enter with a certain amount of dollars spent on the most important resource – people. Over the year, every quarter, you add more, even with some amount of attrition offsetting growth. Then you end the year at a certain of spend (the “X” on the chart). For the next year, if you literally just “froze” in place and did NOTHING, the total spend is up around 4% compared with the year prior (the hashed area under the dotted line is more than the area under the step function in the year prior. If your revenues don’t climb by that same 4% or more – your earnings just declined.
The smarter move (IMO) is to follow the blue line. Use the time to rebalance, adjust, and then invest and grow. Not easy, but ultimately better for the people (as it also give opportunities for people to grow and move).
So – it really is a period of creative generation – and I’m happy to put up a ton of roles in VCE that are a reflection of areas of investment. If readers know about other parts of EMC, RSA, VMware, and Pivotal who have similar openings – please let me know, and I will add them.
Read on past the break for the openings!
If you see something that you want to apply – please email lindsey dot barrows at vce dot com. You can also email me (skill testing question is to infer my email from the previous example :-)
Also – if you are passionate, we want to hear from you. Hiring for culture, for passion, for
Technical Field roles (in VCE, these are called vArchitects, in general these are “SE roles”). In general, a great vArchitect is a great combination of technologist and outgoing persona. They often have experience that spans the full infratructure domain – networking, storage, compute, server virtualization, EuC – and increasingly experience with new Open Source and new cloud native stacks is handy. If you want to know what I believe about the SE role (in any place) – read the Manifesto here.
vArchitects come in several roles – generalists, managers, and sub-specialists. The last category are people LASER focused on places that are growing fast, or very deep skills. Right now, this sub-specialization is in in two areas: 1) the emerging (and accelerating like crazy) Hyper-converged domains at Rack-Scale aka VxRack and in the appliance domain; 2) deep networking ultra-gurus who focus on vScale (which is the datacenter fabric that links multiple Vblocks, VxRacks, and VCE tech extensions).
- vArchitect – Toronto
- vArchitect Mgr – Marlborough
- vArchitect – N. VA
- vArchitect – Philly
- vArchitect – Atlanta
- vArchitect – Richmond
- vArchitect – Oregon
- vArchitect – Bay Area
- vArchitect – So Cal
- vArchitect – Dallas
- vArchitect – CO
- vArchitect – Cleveland
- vArchitect Mgr – Indy
- vArchitect – KY
- vArchitect – St. Louis
- vArchitect – Omaha
- vArchitect – Chicago (x4)
- vArchitect – Mexico City
- vArchitect – DC (Federal) (x2)
- vArchitect – So Cal (Channels)
- vArchitect – Toronto (Channels)
- vArchitect (Consulting) – Dallas preferred (Vscale Specialist)
- vArchitect – Canada (VxRack Specialist)
- vArchitect – NEMA (VxRack Specialist)
- vArchitect – N. TX (VxRack Specialist)
- vArchitect – Southeast (VxRack Specialist)
- vArchitect – Central (VxRack Specialist) (x2)
- vArchitect – NY/NJ (VxRack Specialist)
- vArchitect – Latam (VxRack Specialist)
- vArchitect – Austria
- vArchitect – Sweden
- vArchitect – Germany (x2)
- vArchitect – UKI
- vArchitect – Germany (VxRack Specialist)
- vArchitect – France (VxRack Specialist)
- vArchitect – EU West (VxRack Specialist
- vArchitect – UKI (VxRack Specialist)
Field Sales roles. In general a great VCE sales person is someone who has experience with higher-level solution selling experience – not one part of the infrastructure domain. Software sales experience is very handy (by definition, this is about solution/value). Great customer testimonials is a must – great consultative sellers are loved by their customers. No icky sales people – period.
Like the vArchitect – we have two main types of roles – the generalist (people focused on the full portfolio, inclusive of the solution stacks), and the VxRack Specialist rep. The latter is for people who like ramping new businesses fast, and breaking down barriers – and maintaining a closer connection with the product teams. In my experience – some people like exploring new ground, some like a more mature playing field.
- Rep – N. VA
- Rep – So Cal
- Rep – Central (x 4)
- Rep – DC (Federal)
- Rep - NEMA (VxRack Specialist)
- Rep – N. TX (VxRack Specialist)
- Rep - Southeast (VxRack Specialist)
- Rep – Bay Area (VxRack Specialist)
- Rep - Chicago (VxRack Specialist)
- Rep – NY/NJ (VxRack Specialist)
- Rep – France
- Rep – Italy
- Rep – Sweden
- Rep – Copenhagen
- Rep – UKI (x2)
- Rep – Germany (x2)
- Rep – Germany (VxRack Specialist)
- Rep – France (VxRack Specialist)
- Rep – EU West (VxRack Specialist)
- Rep – UKI (VxRack Specialist)
We are also looking for great product managers, software developers – in locations all around the world.
We are a great place to work, and things are moving fast and furious – come and join us for the next phase of your adventure!
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