Western Digital Cuts San Jose Positions
Western Digital initiated job reductions within the Bay Area region. The San Jose headquarters saw 87 job losses. A WARN notice confirmed the January 20 date. Western Digital stated these job changes are permanent. No employee displacement or union representation exists.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/01/22/san-jose-western-digital-tech-jobs-layoff-economy-work-bay-area/
@wq I was placed in "partially met expectation" in a team of six, which I strongly disagreed. But there was no option to challenge that. I was certainly better than my 64 year old colleague, no offense. He was very knowledgeable in signal processing and very nice person. but the fact was he was doing nothing which would be implemented in the real product, and he was not doing anything related to his core competency. Now why I was chosen, I do not know but I could feel that my managers behavior changed towards me about a year back. became very unsupportive and infact tried misguiding me on some occasions. He was very supportive for the first three years.
I strongly suspect more cash conservation and eliminating debt. WD will have to make acquisitions in the data center space to make itself more relevant. At the same time I don't see new management doing anything too high risk. WD is now being run like Amazon or Microsoft. This will mean more job creation outside of the US and as immigration all but dies. Hope everyone did well on the stock. It looks like WD called the top of the storage market with its intended sale of Sandisk shares. At some point the shortage in flash will end and everything will come crashing back down to earth. This is a bigger bubble than 2020 remote/covid bo-m for data centers. AI is here to stay but companies will increasingly find that all places around the world are very expensive to do business.
@x8 nothing new here
Colorado Springs was hit. Mainly retirement packages to continue the elimination of the old folks. Lost some key SMEs. Looks like the company will focus on being a Storage Platform and/or Archive company. With all the cash on hand, who will they buy?
Anyone knows how many total were affected in Irvine?
@a9 I was told otherwise. They stirred the pot and pushed out the people who actually mattered based on hearsay and chaos.
@a9 stop spreading lies
This was the numbers from sixty days ago. They just let go of more today. I was told it’s not necessarily performance related, but more of a strategic shift to get head count down and allow more salary for engineers. They also cut mid level employees who have been there for some time and already have proven their worth and kept the JK new grad hires knowing they can pay them less. It is what it is and I’m just glad I waited for my package. Also fck SanDisk. You can’t pay my enough to work with those greedy fcks.
Are the people in the bottom 5 percent of the relative performance band let go?
irvine location was hit today
@v9 It doesn't work this way at most companies. Typically companies give you the 60 day notice in order to absolutely positively remove any legal entanglements.
Company-wide RIF today.
@px Hypothetically, an employer can file a WARN act notice, notify employees 60 days later that their position is being eliminated and walk them out immediately with no further payment.
In reality, at WD, it doesn't usually work this way.
@pv This speculative statement doesn’t make sense. The purpose of the WARN Act is to provide affected employees with 60 days’ advance notice so they have time to seek alternative employment.
"This means that WD will be able to pay people less than 60 days after they are informed."
@c6 WARN reports it when it is filed. The law required 60 days notice.
Typical practice at WD has been to tell the affected employees and file the WARN act notice simultaneously. The employees are then typically paid a minimum of 60 days after they are informed.
Unless I am ill-informed, it appears that WD has filed a notice without notifying anyone yet. This means that WD will be able to pay people less than 60 days after they are informed.
Aren't these cuts done 1-2 months back? As WARN reports it after 60 days or so.
yep, poor performance and some mgrs
This has been in the works for a while. I am not sure anyone has been notified that they've been let go yet. That said, most of the positions being eliminated are held by people with poor performance though some are former managers who are without a chair at the table right now.