Lost in Transition, Revisited
Last time I was photographed here in 2018, I was freshly unemployed. And now, I’m back again.
A few years ago, I worked at Duo Security. After they were acquired by Cisco, my job went away, and I blogged about it. Back then, I was in fact offered different jobs within Cisco, but since it would have involved selling my paid-off home and moving from no-state-income-tax Texas to state-income-tax Maryland, I declined. One side effect was this blog. The blog itself led to employment at GitLab just over seven years ago, as a good friend working there hired me.
Well, history repeats I guess. As part of a restructuring within GitLab I was made redundant on June 1, and am once again unemployed. The good news is that after I mentioned my new unemployed status on LinkedIn I was flooded with people asking me to apply for a job at their place of employment - people I know and trust. Very nice! But like with choosing GitLab years ago, I will take my time and slowly make a decision on next steps. Hell, if the economy was better I’d probably retire (and maybe consult for insurance money, because USA). At least I have choices.
Inevitably someone is going to ask what exactly happened, and the fact that GitLab is neck deep in AI means AI is going to be blamed. In a roundabout way, it is the fault of AI, just not in the way most people think. Let me explain.
AI Involvement
So was AI involved, that is the big question I’ve been asked so far. The answer is both yes and no. Was my job simply replaced by AI? Absolutely not. My position in the department simply became redundant for several reasons of which I am not 100% positive on, but there wasn’t enough interest in upper management in relocating me to a different department. I wish I knew more, but in one of the most incompetent and ungodly impersonal exit interviews I have ever participated in, I was one of five employees on a Zoom call all being fired at once. In the 20 minute call, there was barely time to ask any questions, and certainly not the appropriate time and place to ask deeply personal questions.
The Security Division and in factor the entire company was reducing headcount and it was quite the widespread company event. Then the question become one about why the general reduction anyway. The restructuring was to reflect a new direction the company was going to take which did heavily involve AI, specifically agentic AI. To make this happen fully to the desired state, roadblocks would have to be reduced as this would require a combination of better overall orchestration of these agentic AI elements with less human intervention. Hence the restructuring and hence my job becoming redundant. They wanted less human reviewers while trying to make the core code being generated more secure and fast and reliable and so on.
Additionally, if you haven’t noticed, the economy is kind of shitty right now with stock prices plummeting. GitLab’s stock was dipping in lower percentages than some of the other tech stocks, so then investors and shareholders get involved demanding something be done. Two things immediately leap to mind - reduce headcount so you’re appearing to cut costs, and get involved even deeper in AI because the companies doing the AI thing seem to garner favor amongst investors and shareholders. Toss in a restructuring, and this can make stock improve. So yes AI was involved but it is more complicated than one might think.
Moving Forward
Yes I do hope GitLab succeeds. The reason? I am one of those shareholders, and between stock options, RSUs, and purchasing stock at a discount as an employee I have a large chunk of stock that I’d love to drastically rise in price. If it rises enough, I’m definitely retiring. Probably.
In fact this brings us neatly to the next steps going forward. I love playing with tech and have done so for decades. Having a job where I get to do the same things I do at home and also get paid for it is awesome. I’d like to continue that, and I know that even in retirement I’ll be doing hacker-influenced tech stuff.
With past IRAs and various investment accounts, retirement could be an option right now. However I’m so in love with tech and nerding out and learning new things I’d prefer to remain employed. Again, why not get paid for something I would be doing as a hobby anyway?
