Well, I was one of them. The company is a shadow of its former self and cannot admit to the error of purchasing NGINX, which over inflated their business before purchase. Pretty good redundancy pay outside of the US, but heard the cull has been ruthless. Suspect unless f5 speeds up its transition to a software company, alot more will follow.
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TS is a joke at F5..worthless leaders ..doesn’t know a thing about technology or leadership…Full of politics and butt kissers..
FLD needs to resign
“ unless f5 speeds up its transition to a software company, alot more will follow”
There it is again… the thought that a company cannot sell hardware and software at same time and be successful. Funny, how the commenter started with the acquisition of a software company was a bad move.
Companies can and do sell both HW and SW. See Microsoft. F5 hardware isn’t the issue. It’s not a distraction keeping the software from performing.
Its not just NGINX, its SHAPE and threatstack also.
Surely not long before the spotlight is on those that were part of the acquisition team, most of which are at EVP level.....so I am told...
Is it NGINX that’s the massive failure or is it F5? Every acquisition fails. Every organically engineered product is years delayed and underwhelming. What’s the common denominator here? F5 is where C players go to pretend they work in high tech. It’s a hardware company with complete posers from EVP to IC. It’s getting the outcome it has created.
It comes down to exes making bad decisions doesnt affect them it affects the people they employ. This one is sad since it seems to be directed at the people that made them successful imo
Buying Shape for $1B and watching lots of great talent get axed in the recent restructuring announcement. Sound familiar NIGINX specialist teams? Oh wait, they dismantled that team a few years back and many great individuals last week. Expect the same with the Shape sales teams. Can't imagine they have a dedicated specialist team in the future to sell security focused products. It's going to be the sales a-la-carte option of F5 account teams selling the entire suite of products.
Mistakes made by the executive team? Never!!!
I read on a different thread about execs reducing their bonuses for 2023 - CEO $0 and the supporting cast to 30%. <-- 30% of what, millions? That should have been removed off the books completely for the year. That's millions of dollars right there saved and the impact would have been far less. That would have been the "Human First Approach" to help save jobs! Get rid of MBOs for 2023 for all employees. Sucks to hear that, but you still have a job and helping other colleagues retain their position would have been the way to go. Double digits in the millions and you help save 50-100 jobs! Since the acquisition of NGINX, they've had it rough! Losing a complete specialist sales team and now the marketing & engineering teams! Rough outing for sure!
Buying Shape for 1B was a bigger mistake than buying Nginx for 650M. Look on the ground if they sell Shape or not and you will understand...
"Wonder if long term F5'ers were let go, with the thought to keep younger and cheaper talent." .. I think this is a huge mistake. I won't claim to be an expert but wtf are they thinking.
It made me laugh in a sadistic way I never not met goals had 100% bonus for almost 8 yrs then out of the blue bang your out as the company recently hired 4 new people with zero experience new employees and your out
NGINX still operates as a separate company from F5. That was and still is a huge part of the problem. When F5 acquired them it should have been abundantly clear that NGINX is now F5, not just part of it. Wonder if long term F5'ers were let go, with the thought to keep younger and cheaper talent. There's value in those that have historical knowledge and are dedicated employees. Wow, such a shame.
There were a lot of redundant roles for NGINX, such as their own marketing team... there was no redundant marketing team kept for Shape, Threat Stack, and Volterra. But, Threat Stack is now dead as well
Not sure Francois will last as the wheels have come off in the last 4 years
Francois seemed to imply.. something... in one of his calls prior to the layoffs. He said something like, "I admit to the choices I made that led us here" (these weren't his exact words, but it was something like that). Guess that's the closest we'll probably get, and the fact that a lot of employees who joined cause of the merger are now gone.
Oh I think with the decimation of the NGNX team we saw with the layoffs, F5 is admitting NGNX is a massive failure