I've Been Laid Off

2023 started off so bright

I started 2023 firing on all cylinders. I’d just left Xero, had a good chunk of time off over the Christmas period and was absolutely pumped to start my new role at Culture Amp.

Culture Amp’s onboarding experience was awesome and I was impressed at the level of detail they went to to ensure that you were made to feel at home and setting you up for success. I definitely thought I was onto a winner here.

As the first month went by there were a few mentions of the financial performance of the company, Q4 2022 didn’t hit its target and Q1 2023 wasn’t looking great either. There were questions of layoffs, however the CEO, Didier, assured everyone that they were pulling every lever possible to avoid them. My gut told me that the redundancies would come but surely I wouldn’t be impacted. I’d only just started, it took me 4 months to get into the job, why would they hire someone, only to let them go a few months later? The word on the street was they were only hiring ‘key’ roles after announcing a hiring freeze sometime in 2022.

The way I found out was particularly interesting. I was camping in a location that had zero phone reception but I would keep my phone with me to be able take photos. We just happened to be on a hike where we went through an area that had a little bit of reception. I received a text message from a friend, not working at CA, asking if I’d been affected by the layoff. I didn’t think I would be because of what I said above, I must be a ‘key’ hire, they need me!

With the little reception I had, I logged onto Slack to try and piece it all together. Things were loading very slowly so I found it hard, so I just asked the question ‘How do I know if I still have a job or not”. The answer came quickly “Check your email”. So I opened the mail app and waited patiently. Sure enough there was an email to say that I’d been “Impacted”.

Having just witnessed what happened at Xero, the word Impacted didn’t necessarily mean laid off. There was a meeting request to discuss how I’d be impacted but that time had passed, so I just had to wait. All the important meetings were happening that day but there was no way I could attend with no reception.

I couldn’t just sit in the middle of nowhere on a hike to find out more, so we just had to turn around and head back to camp. We would be leaving the next day and I’d just have to deal with it then, when I had reception.

After packing up the camp site (packing up after 4 kids is no mean feat) and getting in the car, we eventually got back into a reception zone, I then received a Slack notification regarding my laptop. Since I Was driving I could only partially see the message "Hi Nick
First of all I wanted to say I’m very sorry to hear you’ve been impacted by the recent news. I hope you are doing ok"
I guess it's official then.

I understand that my situation wasn’t the norm they should have thought about these edge cases - they happen (as a quality assurance person, I've seen some zingers)

Anyway, it was a lousy way to find out and I’ve told the CEO and CTO directly so they’re well aware.

I’m disappointed that it’s ended this way. The Quality Foundations team were only just getting started. We could see some good results from the activities we were doing, incidents were going down, risks were being surfaced and planned for, engineering teams were actively involved with exploratory testing sessions and were getting behind our quality mission. Alas, it was not to be. Our team has been disbanded, only a few remain and are being reassigned to different teams. As our delivery lead, Michelle keeps saying “Didn’t We Almost Have it All”.

What a classic jam.

I'd like to extend a massive shoutout to my team members, Anne-Marie, Michelle, Kat, Marcio, Deepa, Ruth, Jorge, Jas, Jaya Priya, Shobha, Vanitha, and the other two Nicks in the team. I will miss working with them.

3 Nick’s in the team, such a My Big Fat Greek Wedding Vibe.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story, and please don't hesitate to reach out to me if you know of any Quality or Product positions available!

Hit me up on LinkedIn!