Does this truly surprise any of you? By the time we joined our assigned teams, existing systems Analysts and QA were on their way out the door with a buyout. That was the first of many red flags. We remained categorized in who’s who as systems analysts, but largely fulfilled the traditional “product owner” roles on standard scrum teams. Some years later we were faced with two options when scaling across orgs. Become a scrum master, or a dual-hat scrum master/product owner. The latter option did not exist within the incoming scaled model, not to mention the two roles inherently contradicted one another. A lot of people took the (no pun intended) leap of faith into the new role. This happened in a lot of groups because the younger systems analysts were not experienced enough to take on squad lead roles yet, as those were being filled by the product managers at the director level. So in turn, some became scrum masters, others became squad leads without the director level promotion. Kudos to anyone who stuck it out as long as the most recent layoff. Most did so with dignity and grace, despite being dogged on by their engineering peers — & they did in-fact make an impact on the groups they joined. You will all do great in your next positions, hope you are all doing well this weekend despite the chaos and poorly delivered news.
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I did think this was odd. The person I replaced on a squad got promoted to scrum master and then just recently returned to being an analyst. She was surprised that they had backfilled her role back then because she had been told that the “analyst” job was being retired.
The pressure on analysts to become scrum masters was intense. I know one of my colleagues from the MADE Systems Analyst program became a scrum master but was laid off almost instantly after getting promoted in 2024. It almost made me wonder if they promoted just to lay him off.
Think of how experienced SAs who were forced to take on other roles felt seeing LEAP graduates come out with the very titles we were told were obsolete - your description of expecting inexperienced new college hires take on a made up role that didn't exist in the agile model is shocking - I left several years ago as I didn't want to report to the agile org - even though I was a SM. Thank God I was able to take the VBO. Sorry to the folks who were lead down this path that got $crewed over. I guess the fast track isn't always fun
@OP as an experienced SA - hired as one 20 years ago ( former experienced software engineer with another large company) I was also someone who was told no more SAs. My choice was become a full stack engineer or a SM. I chose the latter. It was doable but I truly missed my SA role. Furthermore, I was incensed that LEAP individuals were coming out with SA titles. It didn't make sense at all. Sorry to hear many of you lost your job. Asking a new college grad or anyone to be a dual hat po/sm is absolutely ridiculous. I was dual hat dev/sm and I found that tough at times. I left Fidelity 4 years ago happily retired. It makes me sad that a once good company is making bad decisions like these situations.