[HN Gopher] CircleCI Layoffs
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CircleCI Layoffs
Author : fasgano
Score : 84 points
Date : 2022-12-07 21:23 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (circleci.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (circleci.com)
| 015a wrote:
| I don't want to turn a discussion surrounding layoffs into a lens
| about the business itself; it sucks to be laid off, and I wish
| everyone who was impacted great expediency in finding a new role.
|
| But I'm going to anyway: I genuinely don't understand how
| CircleCI is still a business. Every major code repository
| provider has CI built in. All of the ones I've interacted with
| (Github Actions & Gitlab) are just as good as CircleCI and in
| some ways far better (e.g. there's a stellar community of Actions
| builders on GHA, that can be included with one line; CCI Orbs
| don't have nearly the same uptake). Pricing is all pretty
| similar. Some companies want to self-host stuff: JetBrains &
| Atlassian still own this.
|
| Ultimately we left CCI because their stability was unacceptable.
| While its been quite a few months, their status page history even
| today showcases this well [1]; they legitimately have partial or
| full outages once every two or so weeks (and those are just the
| ones they tell people about; we _regularly_ , weekly, saw build
| failures that could only be explained by "freakin circleci, just
| re-run it").
|
| [1] https://status.circleci.com/
| zamalek wrote:
| We also recently left them for self-hosted GHA runners. The
| other problem is that their pricing is insane - we're building
| exactly the same code for ~20% of the cost.
| mousetree wrote:
| I could never understand their bills. I seemed to get dozens
| of small invoices throughout the month. Their whole concept
| of credits was completely puzzling too. Left to GHA.
| meta2023 wrote:
| You're being downvoted for telling people exactly why they got
| laid off. It's time to wake the fuck up engineers. When you
| complacently don't pay attention to your business and core
| offering, this is what happens.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Engineers aren't generally setting the priorities on what
| gets fixed when or what the business is actually offering.
| The complacency problem is usually in management.
|
| Can't speak for how CCI is run, but that's how it is at most
| places with more than 10 people.
| prepend wrote:
| Engineers choose who to work for.
|
| We go through these cycles where "I have no idea how they
| make money but they keep paying me" stops working. There's
| only so long you can work for a company that doesn't have a
| viable business strategy.
|
| I don't expect engineers to fix the business strategy, but
| I expect them to consider it when choosing to join a
| company or to stay.
| icedchai wrote:
| Exactly this. I've worked for founders at small companies
| (<20 people) who just did _not_ want to listen to advice or
| suggestions. It would be almost impossible to change
| anything at a larger firm. Let 's just keep doing the same
| old thing that isn't working.
| pitched wrote:
| I think the saying is "vote with your feet". There's
| always at least one thing you can change. Your time is
| worth more than your salary, otherwise they wouldn't pay
| it. If you don't think a business will survive, stop
| investing into them with your time.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Pretty good severance terms all things considered.
| jrockway wrote:
| What's the context behind this? I've used CircleCI at many jobs,
| and I guess people must have moved on to some better tool? What's
| the better tool?
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| I am not sure about "better" but a lot of people who previously
| used Travis and Circle use GitHub Actions these days (and maybe
| azure in the meantime).
| edaemon wrote:
| It does seem like CI/CD turned out to be less of a product
| and more of a feature.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| I think CI in particular turned out to be something that
| people really, really don't like being unreliable and it's
| incredibly challenging to operate reliably and cost
| effective. For Microsoft providing that service is somewhat
| possible because they have the warchest and operation
| teams.
|
| I think there is a different world where Travis (and
| Circle) could have been built differently and maybe with a
| slightly different operating model (eg: easier to operate
| self hosted runners) where they could have made it harder
| for GitHub to compete in the beginning. But not sure if
| that would have delayed the inevitable.
| acdha wrote:
| I would assume some combination of "VC funding is no longer
| raining from the sky" and "GitHub Actions are good enough for
| enough teams not to want a second procurement".
| simplotek wrote:
| > What's the context behind this?
|
| From the article:
|
| > Right now, however, there is a ripple effect of uncertainty
| in our sector. Since the start of Q4, we've seen a dramatic
| shift in how every company's performance is evaluated.
| Companies were once praised for growth at all costs. Very
| rapidly, market expectations have shifted. The emphasis now is
| on maximizing efficiency.
|
| It sounds like they are cowardly using the
| Google/Amazon/Twitter workforce decimation campaign as a
| scapegoat to fire people.
| wongarsu wrote:
| I find their explanation pretty reasonable. In 2020 and 2021
| money used to be close to free, with interest rates near zero
| and VCs throwing money at anyone with a growth story. Now
| both of these are no longer true, VCs are much more reserved
| and bank loans much more expensive. And with money being more
| expensive to acquire, everyone is more considerate about
| spending money (and thus manpower).
| vander_elst wrote:
| I've heard about Twitter and Amazon campaigns, but not
| Google's yet. Would it be possible to provide a link for
| that?
| urbandw311er wrote:
| Just because this comment and/or like of discussion could be
| perceived as insensitive on a day when people are getting tough
| news, can I jump in to say that I think it's more likely to be
| symptomatic of the general global downturn and current wave of
| cost-cutting than it is any particular issue with product fit
| or competitors.
| acdha wrote:
| I'd also add something along the line of SaaS fatigue. The
| costs of managing vendors, securing & monitoring, etc. add up
| and it's not uncommon for the overhead cost of another
| service to be more than the benefits of using it. CI falls
| into that category since there's an upper bound to how much a
| dedicated service can give you, especially when the
| competition like GitHub or GitLab gives you a bunch of other
| features for the same price.
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| CircleCI has gone the same way as Docker. They pioneered a
| paradigm but late entrants like GitHub/GitLab/Bitrise etc stole
| the show with their offerings. Most teams I've seen use either
| of these instead of CircleCI
| idoh wrote:
| I was one of the 17% laid off from CircleCI today. It's true, we
| did get to keep our laptops :) As for reasons, it doesn't seem to
| be from any current woes in the numbers (or at least from the
| stats I saw).
|
| So, um, anyone looking for a PM with experience in security or
| data privacy? Hit me up!
|
| I'm happy to answer any questions I can, and good luck to all
| those who've been laid off recently (at Circle or otherwise).
| ZeKK14 wrote:
| The list is already updated here: https://layoffs.fyi/
| echelon wrote:
| It would be really great if this broke out engineering from
| support and other roles.
| siquick wrote:
| Circle was the first CI/CD tool I used and opened my eyes up to a
| whole new way of deploying. I haven't used it for a few years but
| hope they can find a space.
| aftbit wrote:
| I feel for all the engineers impacted by this layoff, but I do
| not agree that they are "the best CI/CD platform on the market".
|
| Our small team has moved away from CircleCI for all new projects.
| We are mostly using Github Actions these days. The major driver
| was not cost, which was minimal for our team, but the fact that
| CircleCI keeps breaking our build. In the ~5 years that we have
| used them, we have experienced at least 3 major breakages,
| including the migration from v1 to v2 yaml configs and the new
| docker architecture.
|
| They have strayed far from their early value prop and cause us
| more headaches than delight. CircleCI, if you are listening, all
| I want with CI/CD is to forget about it, not have to revisit a
| working project every year to rearchitect it onto a new builder.
| hoherd wrote:
| I guess this is a good place to remind folks that scheduled
| workflows will probably stop working soon
|
| > The scheduled workflows feature is set to be deprecated.
| Using scheduled pipelines rather than scheduled workflows
| offers several benefits. Visit the scheduled pipelines
| migration guide to find out how to migrate existing scheduled
| workflows to scheduled pipelines.
|
| https://circleci.com/docs/configuration-reference/#schedule
|
| One more thing to migrate out of the config file in the repo
| and off behind some API call or pointy-clicky UX.
|
| Edit: it looks like they've postponed the deprecation, which
| was originally planned for 2022-06-03
| https://discuss.circleci.com/t/scheduled-pipelines-are-here/...
| fasgano wrote:
| CircleCI lets go of 17% of their workforce today.
| nocobot wrote:
| but hey, they get to keep their laptops
| raymondh wrote:
| For those of you unfamiliar with layoff practices in most
| other industries, this is as good as it gets. The terms
| enumerated in the note are generous. Also, the value of the
| job placement support should not be underestimated.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| They don't want to pony up $ for the prepaid labels I'm
| guessing? The laptops are sunk cost anyway and then there's
| also the additional overhead of processing the returned
| laptops with their IT? Man things must be really bad if
| that's the case..
| trynewideas wrote:
| Are there tax implications? Do the laptops count as losses
| CircleCI can write off, and compensation the ex-employee
| has to report?
| johnrob wrote:
| Surprised that is possible in the age of compliance for
| certifications (PCI, HIPPA, SOC2, etc).
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Was also wondering about this. Perhaps they will push a
| wipe or a clean reinstall..
| hobr wrote:
| If they are using Mobile Device Management (MDM), they can
| remotely wipe all the laptops before allowing departing
| staff to keep them.
| calrueb wrote:
| With these non-IPO companies doing layoffs is the correct way to
| read these announcements "we are letting people go to lower
| expenses because we are not profitable and are actually at risk
| of running out of money" or is it more "we are letting people go
| to lower expenses because our investors are asking that we look
| better on paper because they would like us to have a liquidity
| exit event (acquisition, private equity, IPO)"?
|
| I suppose my larger question is if a private company is break-
| even/profitable would the investors/board ever ask management to
| make these cuts? If so, why?
| datalopers wrote:
| For all companies, public or private, they need to grow their
| gross margins if they want to survive. The last 5-10 years was
| inappropriately focused on revenue and headcount growth and the
| tide has very abruptly shifted.
| xedrac wrote:
| I suspect it has a lot to do with the rate at which companies
| can borrow money.
| wongarsu wrote:
| All of the above.
|
| Suppose you have a company with no money, but with a bank
| willing to loan you money at market rate. You can do three
| projects, one costs $1 mil, and after a year brings you $1.5
| mil in profit, the second costs $1 mil and brings $1.05 mil
| after a year, and the third costs $1 mil and brings $1.01 mil.
|
| In 2021 interest rates were near zero, so all three projects
| would have given you a profit. The worst of the bunch only
| $10,000, but that's still nice. So you hire people to do all of
| them. But now at the end of 2022 interest rates are about 4%
| and climbing. The loan for each project now costs $40,000,
| making the last project unprofitable, and the second project
| will only be profitable for a couple more months at best. So
| you cut projects 2 and 3, laying off everyone working on them.
|
| That's how a healthy company would end up with layoffs. A less
| healthy company might only have projects like the second and
| third one, and is now running around trying to improve
| efficiency. And some companies don't make profit at all, being
| afloat on the hope of eventually making some, and slowly
| sinking as that money becomes more and more expensive.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Really good summary of how different economic times are
| handled differently at a business strategy level. It's worth
| noting as an engineer because risky startups 2 years ago are
| not carrying the same level of risk for you as an IC to
| contribute to today. It could be case that a startup closes
| doors way faster/quicker today whereas a few years back
| they'd continue burning cash.
|
| This is why jobs are not just a job but you are investing in
| a company so to speak because if the company is not
| successful your job may also not be needed any longer.
| thebitguru wrote:
| I don't know about CircleCI specifically, but generally, pre-
| IPO companies are pushed to reinvest profits in favor of
| aggressive/continued growth, instead of profit. Most companies
| intentionally overspend, but now that the investments are
| drying out, they are changing their posture. So, I would guess
| it's the former, i.e., letting people go to reduce the risk of
| running out of money.
|
| At the same time, depending on how the business is doing, some
| investors might look for exits too instead of plateau or later
| raising another round. So, it could be both.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| > Despite today's news, we're confident in our business. I
| believe we have the right strategy to succeed in the long term.
| We have the best CI/CD platform on the market by leaps and
| bounds. We see that success reflected in the continued growth of
| our business, adding thousands of high-performing engineering
| teams to our platform over the past 12 months.
|
| Clearly that's not the case if you're doing layoffs, no? Wouldn't
| you want to keep those folks around so you can do that bit at the
| bottom: "Our customers are some of the most innovative,
| engineering-centric businesses on the planet, and helping them do
| great work will continue to be our focus."
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Wouldn 't you want to keep those folks around..._
|
| I'm sure they would if they felt they could, however...
|
| _" ...there is a ripple effect of uncertainty in our sector.
| Since the start of Q4, we've seen a dramatic shift in how every
| company's performance is evaluated. Companies were once praised
| for growth at all costs. Very rapidly, market expectations have
| shifted. The emphasis now is on maximizing efficiency."_
|
| Meaning, this is (as I read it) largely a response to investor
| pressure to right-size.
| jfengel wrote:
| This is how the business cycle works. Companies expand during
| the booms, so that they can prepare to take on more business
| than they are currently doing. Eventually somebody realizes
| that it has all been irrationally exuberant, and a bunch of
| them get laid off.
|
| This is why the standard economics policy is to try to grow
| slowly and smoothly rather than have big boom and bust cycles.
| As the saying goes, the Fed's job is to take the punch bowl
| away just as the party gets started.
|
| But unfortunately, everybody loves punch, and boos when the Fed
| takes measures to rein in the economy. The last recession in
| the US ended in 2009, but the central bankers treated it as a
| crisis until... until it became a different crisis.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I feel bad for the employees.
|
| Does anyone... actually like CircleCI?
|
| Last time I used it, it just felt way too opinionated. Then they
| introduced their way of standardizing jobs with templates or
| something (it has been a while) and for some reason made the
| decision that any templates had to be public instead of private
| for the first version (which was completely backwards).
|
| Personally for me I always lean towards Jenkins just because I
| can do whatever I want with it. But baring that I feel like I
| would end up either going with something my git hosted provides
| (like GitHub actions) or something my cloud provider has (like
| AWS CodeBuild).
|
| Is there something I am missing? Looking at the pricing it isn't
| exactly cheap either.
| [deleted]
| timtom39 wrote:
| I used to love CircleCI then they broke all my CI jobs when
| they deprecated their "Convenience image". Rather than continue
| to maintain CircleCI jobs and pay them for the pleasure I am
| just migrating to GH actions. It is painful. They have good
| lock in.
| brianwawok wrote:
| No not really.
|
| I think it is one of the few providers that offers Apple
| runners. Not much else besides that. We switched to self hosted
| teamcity and 1/3 our build time with a 6 month payback.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > Last time I used it, it just felt way too opinionated.
|
| That's exactly what I like about it.
| ftlio wrote:
| > Does anyone... actually like CircleCI?
|
| It's a weird feeling where they once felt like a reprieve from
| all the PITA "enterprise" stuff, but now they're that PITA
| kinda-poorly-minded "SaaS" stuff, which sucks compared to... a
| Microsoft product?
|
| It's kinda obvious in retrospect. Enterprise became SaaS faster
| than SaaS could become enterprise.
| icedchai wrote:
| I set up CircleCI at a previous company because it was "easy"
| and neither GitHub Actions nor AWS CodeBuild existed yet.
| Eventually, we outgrew it (memory issues, I think?) and set up
| our own Jenkins instance. This would've been back in 2016, so
| I'm sure it's better now.
| vander_elst wrote:
| Best of luck to all impacted employees!
|
| The terms seem above average, I hope something like this will
| become the standard.
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