Thread regarding VMware layoffs

TAMs need to be technical but not SMEs in every product, they manage the relationship. TAMs have always been a great help to any account I have been on.

+1 that TAMs are not nearly as technical as they could be (should be). Much of that blame goes on past leadership of the TAM org. It has been severely mismanaged on several key fronts for over a decade, and the company has never had the appetite to make the major fundamental changes to the TAM offering or GTM strategy necessary to stay relevant and competitive. The fact that the service is still being sold a-la-carte and TAMs are assigned per-account, rather than per-specialty, is proof of that. A lot of really good individual TAMs have gotten hamstrung by internal administrative BS and pointless required deliverables from TAM leadership over the years that most TAMs never really had the time or incentive to be the sharp technical resources that customers thought they were buying. And yes the current efforts are an attempt to compensate from the CXS dumpster fire created 2 years ago in by Dimwit and MeeTu, but it may be too little too late.

Or TAMs who got a vcp during the 5.x era and act like they are still Technical.

This is the Silicon Valley way - fake it after you make it.

So how are we all supposed to come together if there is all this bad blood?

People have choices. If you want to stay, stay. If you want to leave, leave.

The lack of mutual respect in the same organization is not right and at this point, 2.5 years later a failure of both leadership, managers and individual contributors.

We can do better.

@1irl+1mcXJylk

As a TAM for many years it's not slander it's the truth. The amount of of TAMs who can't even explain the new features following a pre-made PowerPoint deck is staggering. I knew TAMs who flat out said "I wasn't hired to be Technical I was hired to talk to people."

I have seen Senior TAMs ask questions that if you put that exact question into Google it would pull up our docs with the exact answer.

Or TAMs who got a vcp during the 5.x era and act like they are still Technical.

“ as the only groups with technical expertise left within CXS”

Remember core PSO sits in CXS.

It isn't rushed, but it's covering up another clusterf*ck made nearly two years ago by our illustrious president.

Under the original CS/CXS org, the Customer Success Architects were meant to be the technical resources helping to drive customer adoption/consumption and CSAT. There was a group of programme managers within these teams gathering metrics around adoption/satisfaction and co-ordinating with the BUs and field.

These teams got nuked by Sumit/Meenu in early 2021, gutting all of that effort. It left the TAMs and the VMC CSA team as the only groups with technical expertise left within CXS.

I was never a TAM but will not stand for this TAM slander, I spent wayyyyy toooo long at VMware and the TAM's I saw grind through the dirty work which nobody else wanted to do was the lifeblood of some account teams.

Long live the TAM's and it's a shame that leadership never figured out that CSM's were for actual SaaS companies before they tried to awkwardly fuse them in to a perpetual license company trying to masquerade around as a company with actual leadership, CFO, etc.

Package is 2 months on payroll with benefits, 2 months after, and 1 week for each year of service. Cobra coverage is 3 months paid starting after the 2 month on payroll.

@jnn+1mcXJylk

Some good people who are SCSM's who would have no issue doing a TAM's job. Then you have TAM's who are terrible at their job but hide behind specialists and other TAM's. I can think of 30ish out of 900 TAM's who if they lost those 30 the rest of the org would crumble because of how much work they put in helping everyone else.

I was told a long time ago TAM is the best place to '"rest and vest"

SCSMs needed to go a while ago. Sorry, not sorry..

@pwh+1mcXJylk

You get offered a package?

It’s obvious they have no clue, I’m taking the package.