Thread regarding Dell Inc. layoffs

Niche and useless

Joined EMC as a Symmetrix support engineer after my studies. I studied software engineering, but thought EMC was a great foot in the door. It's been 10+ years and here I am typing in symm codes in the terminal day in day out. Tried interviewing for other jobs but I have 0 knowledge about what's happening in the industry. Myself and others in the team have 0 knowledge about any other technical concepts....even simple networking....ask them what netstat or traceroute is used for and they wouldn't know even if their life depended on it.

I'm stuck here like the furniture and the other dinosaurs in my team. What a sh-t product and a career ending choice. How the heck can I get out of here without having to study my a-s off again?!

This product might be flagship but the people supporting it have very niche skills.

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| 2231 views | | 14 replies (last June 2, 2025) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+1jwghttn6

14 replies (most recent on top)

@pf+1jwghttn6

He said he types Symm codes, not Symm coding. You're barking up the wrong tree and stop taking it personally. Your career is pretty much dead, and you're taking offense to it. Stop pretending to be some Symmetrix hotshot...it's a dead product and you're in a dead-end role with niche skills (just like the OP says).

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Post ID: @qd+1jwghttn6

HES Support, where careers go to die. RIP.

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Post ID: @pj+1jwghttn6

as support you not typing any code - so that is a story for your kids perhaps

as sustained engineering you not typing any code either - you may occasionally do some work but that aint your job

so you'd be developer and none of what you wrote makes sense

10 years is when EMC was acquired by Dell - so you couldn't have joined EMC. If you did - name who hired you as there is only 2 names and both are easy to talk to

yes, I have been here 25+ years and yes, in symm team so I'd know who you are and none fits the description

So making up stories for 'the layoffs' is what you do - seeing what the response is - seems to be proper description

Now, as far as I can tell , should you be coding for symm team - you'd have learnt great amount of skills as not many workplaces out there offer system as symm to work on - and if you not learning from it - you ain't in it.

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Post ID: @pf+1jwghttn6

Do you use your tuition reimbursement every year to take professional classes and college courses?

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Post ID: @nr+1jwghttn6

Don’t sh-t on yourself dude. But realize you can do this. Every day you skip making forward momentum though is one day longer til your new future. Find a motivational self help book of some kind that teaches time management and discipline. If you can steal back half an hour or an hour a day from tv and scrolling you can make revolutionary change in time.

Pep talk for myself as much as you can.

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Post ID: @nq+1jwghttn6

Why not take one of Dell’s training paths in something like AI or DevOps. In 4 short hours (much less if you play it at 2x) you will have acquired the skills needed to be Dell Certified AI engineer or a DevOps engineer.

Sure, you won’t actually learn anything other than how to tone out the register of the presenter’s voice and while you will NEVER get to put those skills into practice you can be safe in the knowledge that you’re on the ladder to greatness.

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Post ID: @ja+1jwghttn6

Consider yourself lucky because you're in a technical role where hard skills play a core role to find another job.
Many positions, like sales (which in most cases at Dell are non-technical roles), depend exclusively on vague soft skills and personal network, thus making it even harder to work your a-s off to gain new skills.

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Post ID: @hy+1jwghttn6

The issue is that the EMC side of the house sells turnkey solutions, which is not a great place to be from a support standpoint right now.

You're not troubleshooting vlans, MTU, spanning tree, port channel, fabrics, linux service issues, firewall problems, software issues etc so you don't naturally develop adjacent skills.

This provides a great benefit to company and small/medium customers, because it greatly reduces the call volume by having such a strict firmware/driver/os/config/architecture model. If your scope can be completely covered by a list of Solve procedures and KB articles, then you should be questioning when NBA in Salesforce will be able to do your job.

While you're still working for Dell, take some classes in Networking, Linux, VMware, Microsoft, preferably with an instructor. Dell offers plenty of them.

Set up a homelab or virtualize one using VMware Workstation; it is free today. Get some entry-level certifications; Net+, Security+, Linux+, VMware VCP-DCV, etc to help find something you like, then work your way up a tree.

Finally, get away from departments focusing on turnkey solutions as those skills won't translate elsewhere.

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Post ID: @g6+1jwghttn6

What is this EMC thing people keep talking about? I can only find references to a failing company that ceased to exists over a decade ago. Was this something like the Great Western Railroad of the 1800's? I heard working for them was amazing.

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Post ID: @cs+1jwghttn6

I think Dell is a garbage company but at the end of the day you fell asleep at the wheel.

Had you kept your eyes opened you would have realised it 1 years in then worked on an exit strategy

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Post ID: @ak+1jwghttn6

@aa+1jwghttn6 - you own your career. It isn't the 1960s. Dell hasn't changed since the late 90s. There's never any development. If you want to leave, a promotion, etc, you have to do it on your own. Study, pay out of pocket, get certs. Use your education reimbursement to leave. Dell isn't going to do it for you.

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Post ID: @ae+1jwghttn6

They don’t teach us the skills because they don’t want us to progress to other roles and at the same time if we stay too long, they want to get rid of us.

What are we supposed to do??? I’m in the same boat as the OP.

This a question to the previous comment!! F U!

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Post ID: @aa+1jwghttn6

it's up to you to figure out where you want to be in 3-5 years, what skill sets are needed and to find a way to get there...Dell sux but it's not there job.

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Post ID: @a2+1jwghttn6

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