Broadcom doesn’t have much of a “company culture” but now you realize that most of the VMware culture building events were meant to soften and obfuscate the pay gap between you and the millionaire executives.
Now YOU are the millionaire.
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One thing that concerns me is that, as dino-tech employees, we're not very marketable. And you might be shown the door, by no fault of your own, as soon as the balance sheet triggers a layoff. Can you bank enough avgo to get you all the way to retirement?
But that's the thing - they DON'T pay the same. I've worked at startups doing the coolest stuff... while worrying whether the next round of funding will pay our checks. On the other hand I've never made more than at this place with it's dinosaurs and boring-ar-e tech. Ultimately I do tech to make a living - for the pay, not for bragging rights on cool hip tech.
@6h9 that's exactly VMW vs Broadcom. One was bloated with much less innovation.
@4vb - Universal exploitation aside, there's still a BIG difference between working at a shop where they want to make cool products versus someplace that just wants to soak customers while the products rot.
Sure, it all pays the same, but one has the potential to be interesting and grow your knowledge, while the other is just scut work.
Most companies now use spyware-watch-you software if you remote. Managers can't watch you at home, but big-brother software sure does. At my new job it knows every keystroke, resources I connect to and when, and time on/off the keyboard. They tell us this. How do you define "getting work done"? It's surely not the same as getting MORE done in the remaining day while you're watched in the office by looking eyes, or at home by this spyware. Poster is right - they don't trust you to just work all day at home like you at least must appear to in an office. If you find a company that pays AND trusts - go there. I find pay and trust are mutually exclusive.
The real reason is the key part they don't say -- because YOU ARE NOT TRUSTED by Broadcom/Hock to actually work as much at home
Amazing corner you paint yourself into.
No accountability by mgmt is possible to ensure work is being done? I guess we don’t need the managers then, fire them all and I’ll show up in the office.
F Hock!
"Not everything is a facade." True, but most things trying to get you to BELIEVE something tend to be.
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! The greatest Oz has spoken!"
The real reason for in-office is NOT for team collaboration, nor to embrace an old school show-up culture, and not even for higher productivity. The real reason is the key part they don't say -- because YOU ARE NOT TRUSTED by Broadcom/Hock to actually work as much at home, with your laundry checks and Netflix in the background and step-outs for this or that, as you do when you're forced to be in an office with all eyes watching. Here's where many will say "but I actually work MORE and more efficiently at home, the 3 hour commute alone I can remotely work instead of drive" and all that, and I even agree with it. But that's exactly what they don't trust everyone to actually do. And sorry to say that during the pandemic, too many slackers at home barely working at all simply ruined it for those of you actually more productive remotely.
Not everything is a facade. Making people RTO who have no colleagues they work with in the office and consume 4hrs and a good chunk of their take home salary - all to make you bitter and exhausted- just to appease Hock’s “line of doom for badge check-in” isn’t the same as “the execs always make more money”. In this case, the joy of running a labor camp is what wears everyone down. Does that happen else where, sure. Does it also NOT happen elsewhere - you bet.
@OP :
We want Part 4...We want Part 4... We want Part 4... 🙂
@4gp - your post is interesting in that it's properly cynical but also filled with belief. I too was acquired, and realized that the former company's so-called innovation and culture and sense of your work mattering... were all BS. You were hired by similar rich dudes to work on the roof of their mansions, who think of you that way and will kick you out when that work is done just the same. It's just that they did it with a fake smile so you BELIEVED all that BS. It's like when my 4-yr old who believed in Santa Claus was told by his older sister that Santa isn't real - he hated that sister all year, blamed her for ruining his BELIEF in the untrue. At least here they don't fake it - yes you're a commodity, so is your software, you're all hired/used to make someone else big $$ - they don't act like Santa Claus to get you to be a happy slave in your belief in bs like those former companies you think did but didn't, they were just Santa to you, kid.
The many folks who down voted, why are you still here? Let it go from your own head...
So here we toss all that into the trash and pay employees the money otherwise spent on that garbage.
Exaggerated ideas of how much money a pizza party is or decent coffee in the office.
A rounding error on Hock Tans bloated comp package.
The real issue is the amoral scümbag which is Hock. F him. F him in the A
Now go take your “VMware is woke vibe” and join iCE. That is the bcom culture.
I came in through an acquisition. Like most of us did. Because nobody in their right mind chooses Broadcom. You get acquired, and then you get to watch everything you built—the culture, the innovation, the sense that your work actually mattered—get stripped for parts like a stolen car.
Day one, you realize this isn’t a technology company. It’s a financial extraction machine wearing an engineering department as a skin suit. They don’t build anything. They acquire things built by people who once gave a damn, squeeze the customers until they scream, and ride the revenue down to zero. CA Technologies was where software went to die. VMware’s on the same hospice bed now. Your project is next.
I walked into Java 8. No documentation. The architects had been fired. The people still standing were dinosaurs running on inertia and Stockholm syndrome, and honestly, after a while, I became one of them. That’s how it works. You stop fighting. You stop caring. You just… stay.
The ranking system is where it gets truly cruel. A forced bell curve means 5-10% of your team must be branded failures every year. Not because they failed. Because the spreadsheet demands a sacrifice.
And the sick joke is that Rank 1 won’t save you when the layoffs come. Nothing saves you. When Hock looks at the margin and doesn’t like what he sees, entire teams vanish overnight. Good engineers. Bad engineers. Doesn’t matter. You’re not a person to these people. You’re a line item.
Promotion? Don’t make me laugh. ICB4 to ICB5 is less than 1%. Come in at whatever level you can beg for because you will die at that level. The only career development here is learning to keep your head down and your mouth shut.
And the “golden handcuffs” everyone talks about? For most of us they’re golden twist-ties. Just enough to keep you from leaving. Not enough to make you feel like anything other than livestock being managed for sla-ghter on Hock Tan’s schedule.
That’s what ki-ls me. The man runs this company like a dictator running a labor camp and somehow gets profiled in business magazines like he’s a genius.
He’s not a genius. He’s a guy who figured out that if you acquire monopolistic products with trapped customers, fire half the staff, and te--orize the rest into silence, the margins look fantastic. Any sociopath with an MBA could do it. He just does it with less pretense than most.
So yeah. The money’s okay. Not obscene, not for most of us. Just enough to make you feel like an id--t for staying, and an id--t for leaving.
If you’re reading this because you just accepted an offer—I’m sorry. Start interviewing again.
Drowning in sewer. 420 top? 420?
Ah the small hat geniuses architects
I swim in luciferian sewer. I get stocks.
Do you want to do "cool dev" or do you do this for the pay
Yup. A buddy joined an AI startup, but now it's almost run the initial cash dry. So, employees jumping ship, some staying but not getting regular paychecks, no customers buying the vision or at least not willing to risk a business destroying hallucination.
Anyone else think AI is a textbook tech bubble, one that's gonna pop hard and take a lot of money with it when it goes?
"I have to wear an Apple tracker so my manager knows where I am at all times. I’ve been scolded for taking too long in the bathroom!"
Haha, finally some humor, that's hilarious. Yes, CA Tech had that reputation as they were also serial acquirers of software companies who were "innovative" and not making any money on their innovations. Same old story - there are the creators and startups etc doing cool stuff, and there are the finance bro's who aim to make profit off it - rarely ever seems its the same company though. Do you want to do "cool dev" or do you do this for the pay, that's the question, they rarely align.
EVERYTHING is on maintenance.
Except exploring more way to make your life miserable, Hock is rather innovative in that regard.
I have to wear an Apple tracker so my manager knows where I am at all times. I’ve been scolded for taking too long in the bathroom!
FNG I hate to break it to you but BC isn't a software company in any classic sense. They just acquire something with sticky customers that they can then drain until the applications age out.
That's why you find so much old tech, dinosaurs, etc. CA (Computer Associates, also acquired by BC) has an industry-wide reputation as a place where software goes to die. VMware's next.
Hope you weren't expecting anything innovative. EVERYTHING is on maintenance.
New hire here. The people here are dinosaurs who have no clue of reality. No documentation. All architects fired. Java 8.
Really, you think you won’t be paid well somewhere else? Stock that important? Unless you’re close to retirement have some self respect, slip out of the “golden handcuffs” and go work with intelligent, creative people again. You’ll someday be glad you did.
The manipulation here is "here's a bunch of stock - like A LOT of it, if you stay" - aka golden handcuffs. Sure is a better pacifier than a free lunch cafe or we-love-you event every once in a while.
“ execs. It's all manipulative pacification, you're right. So here we toss all that into the trash and pay employees the money otherwise spent on that garbage. Sounds like freedom not tyranny to me’
Naw, it’s still manipulation, otherwise who would willing stick around this place?
I found the vmware culture about the same as most CA tech co's, forced yes, following what their neighbors were doing like good software company conformists. What always cracked me up was the actual tech culture though. The original Virtual Machine came out in 1972 on mainframes for pete's sake, It was the first "hypervisor” allowing multiple concurrent OS images of various OSs (for IBM mainframes). VMW did that to PCs in the 90s, wow, stunning, yet acted like they invented the whole concept in their cultural conceit.
Company culture by force (events etc). It's not at BRCM because it's phony. So the culture is - no forced culture, which I prefer. Give the miners and factory workers their beer so they keep working for pennies, say the owners. Give those young techies their feel-good vibes events so that they too keep working for pennies compared to us, say the tech execs. It's all manipulative pacification, you're right. So here we toss all that into the trash and pay employees the money otherwise spent on that garbage. Sounds like freedom not tyranny to me.
Yes, I feel just as rich as Hock Tan!
Soon I’ll learn to act like him and berate my fellow employees. It will be a wonderful day!
So, thanks for the money Hock, now I’m free to act like a total a-hole - just like you.
Such inspiration!
Money - separates the weak from the strong. Now I’m strong, so F all the serfs.
Get me my baseball bat, I’ve got meetings to attend.
Until the next Meta/Microsoft/OpenAI/Google contract, mate!
Right now now the share price is plummeting...
Yawn