Thread regarding TransUnion layoffs

This last round of layoffs might just be the final nail in the coffin for TransUnion

From where I sit as a person who worked for a company that TU acquired a few years ago, almost all of the technical engineering staff with knowledge and experience of major technical systems that keep the business running have been laid off now. All of the TU staff (mostly contractors from other countries) that have stepped in to learn things still have no clue of how things actually operate even at a basic level. Most don't care to learn or don't possess the right technical and business skills and they rely on those who actually built these systems from the original companies that were acquired to do the real work. But now almost all of those original individuals from legacy companies are gone after many rounds of layoffs.

We're talking about extremely technical systems that interface with thousands of other companies that we have legal contracts with to receive information from and process it every day. Millions of records which generate millions of dollars for TU are being handled by a skeleton crew of incompetent TU staff and contractors now. Not to exaggerate but its now equivalent to a McDonalds fry cook doing complex brain surgery in a blindfold. Yet all of the middle-management play it down by saying, oh it's easy, it's not complicated, and we can handle it. Yet even years later, they still can't complete 99.9% of their tasks without the help of those who were laid off in recent rounds who wound up doing all of their work for them. No matter how many times they were "trained" on something, most still don't grasp what is going on and don't understand these parts of the business.

I have a feeling that very soon those poor companies that partnered with TransUnion to use products and services are going to quickly discover that TU has made blind upper level decisions with no real clue of how things actually operate, what actually they do, how much money they are making them, or who knows how to run, build, and maintain these systems. We were told years ago that this OneTru thing is the answer to everything that all the legacy systems would be migrated over to it within 1 year. Well it's been several years now and we are still operating on the same legacy systems with no end in sight for OneTru. And TU has no one left now that can properly support the legacy systems, fix partner issues, and keep them running after layoffs. Luckily many legacy systems were finely automated, but who is going to be there now when something breaks and partners of TU are going to be ringing the help desk phones off the hook? Are they going to answer and say the truth? "yeah, sorry about that, um we just laid off everyone that knows how to fix your problem, sorry but we can't help you."

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is bad business 101. If you want to know what is keeping your business up and running between your golf matches, then talk to the actual people that have their hands in it daily and keep things running for you instead of laying them all off. Don't talk to middle management because all they're going to say is what you want to hear which is a farce, "No worries boss, we got it all under control. Sure, we can do that, we can do anything you want, go ahead and make your cuts, no problems here." Middle-management here is the worst I've ever seen. Have you seen the movie "The office", TU would make the perfect sequel.

Being laid off this round would have been better than staying. The difference between those who were laid off and the existing TU people is that we actually care(d) for our partners and our customers. We treat them like family and bend over backwards to help them when problems arise. We realized the value in those relationships. But all I've seen from the TU staff is incompetency, delegation and arrogance. They just keep playing their corporate games and it's going to bite them hard real soon when the ship starts sinking and everyone who knows how to keep it afloat has been laid off. Mayday.... Mayday... Mayday...

This was too good to stay buried in the replies. The OP is @rm+1kbn0zf88.


by
| 2401 views | | 7 replies (last December 21) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+1kbzb78dk

7 replies (most recent on top)

I was one of the causalities, I was hinted 2 months ago that my name was on the 'list', I just waited out for the severance pay.

My manager was working his a-s off the whole night the previous day to fix a code and he too was laid off.

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @24e+1kbzb78dk

I was one of the first casualties with layoff in Oct 2023. After 23 years they just decided my position wasn’t available anymore. But I worked the night prior makes no sense. I was lucky to find work 2 months after layoff, kept my full severance and cobra. Invested. Paid off debt, land on my feet making more money and better bonus 12% for the 2nd year in a row. Genx here and was told to be loyal climb the ladder and where did that get me? Two years later found another role because of the experience I got offered more money and 15% bonus annually. Invest in yourself and get out transunion.

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @rh+1kbzb78dk

This hits home with the Argus team lol

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @py+1kbzb78dk

I agree wholeheartedly. I think the seeds of TU's demise have been sown. I believe the stock has hit its high watermark. Cartwright and Venkat will be gone in a year, with their millions, insisting they did everything right.

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @fb+1kbzb78dk

Watching what this board and Cartwright has done to TransUnion is an American tragedy. I am sickened that those who are there right now knowingly tossed workers into unemployment. Corporate America is greedy, and everyone understands the 'we care about our employees' is just bullsh-t, but the TransUnion story is one of the most disgusting of our modern era. TransUnion is the smelliest tu-d on Wall St.

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @ek+1kbzb78dk

@b9
Agree on that topic 100%. I have never worked with a more incompetent group of engineers until I met the TU GCC engineers. They shouldn't even be called engineers. I want to know what the hiring process was for those people? In my experience, most of what they touch doesn't improve but gets worse. We spent 2-3 months fixing an issue that was caused by releasing one of their pieces of code without any testing or oversight. It destroyed thousands of personal records and affected hundreds of our partners and clients. And the entire thing could have been avoided with a single line of code added. It was equivalent to your boss telling you to delete a single file, but the code you wrote deleted an entire drive with thousands of files instead. The TU engineer forgot the part that indicates which file to delete. The partners and clients were pi---d and the man-hours spent cleaning up the mess was insane. To this day I don't think everything was fully fixed/reversed. It would be like stepping into a uber in NYC but the driver is 9 years old and the only experience they have is playing video games. "Strap in, it's going to get bumpy, hope you have good health insurance."

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @bj+1kbzb78dk

Management should be forced to work with GCC incompetent engineers for a week to see what we face every day! They wouldn’t last a day , never mind a week before calling them offensive words. Not only are the GCC incompetent and useless , I’ve found them to be rude as well.

Venkat, J Martin, are all to blame. The lot need to go!

by
| | Reply
Post ID: @b9+1kbzb78dk

Post a reply

: