Having the usual fun at my place.
We were bought about a year ago by a private equity shop and merged with a complimentary company in the same sector. Unusually, they don’t do the exact same stuff as us and the products mesh together nicely which will improve cross-sell. Actually a smart move for once!
That said, We’ve still gone through the usual 12 months of offshoring and cost cutting, and in the last all hands call they announced the grand strategy was to invest in the products to boost sales, and then sell us in 2 to 3 years time.
I know exactly what that means in reality. It means massive cost cutting, probably another wave or two of offshoring, and essentially tarting up the product without fixing any of the underlying issues while trying to cross sell across our new, larger, existing customer base.
It’s not something I want to be involved in. The constant stress of wondering if your neck is next on the chopping block plus the obvious reduction in quality that we’re going to get from having already got rid of almost all of our experienced developers. Also all the UK devs are already gone and they are really struggling to recruit offshore replacements meaning the team is down to only two thirds of the expected headcount. It’s basically been a clusterfuck. What a shock!
The morale in my customer success team is hideous. We’re starting to see people going off sick with stress and overwork, which is inevitably going to lead to people leaving. I just need to stick it out for one more year and I’ll be in a position to pay off the mortgage. I can then take whatever job I want as long as it pays a half decent wage and not worry, so frankly I’m in an extremely fortunate position as long as I can see out the next year while planning for my exit.
Fun times!