[sudeepj]

I can relate to this article. While in UK, back in 2008/9, I was a senior developer (C/C++). The favourite topic during lunch times was who will be gone or who will be retained. One guy, who everyone thought would be safe was a Team Lead (of a system written in COBOL). This guy had been awarded topmost grade in recent appraisal cycle.

He was layed-off and I got the charge of handling his system, in addition to mine, with no promotion. Apparently the only thing mattered was how much "value-for-money" an employee is bringing to the table. I came to know later that almost all team leads were layed-off because the systems in question were in existence for last 10 yrs and were stable.