[dbrueck]

I feel bad for the people being laid off, but I'm floored by the size of these companies. I know there are always lots of people in sales & support, and some "overhead" positions, and you multiply by some factor for an international presence.

But still... even with all that... for the services DocSign provides... how can they possibly need over 7000 people?

[cosmodisk]

Same here. Of all the software companies, Docusign has the easiest, most straightforward product that is neither resource intensive nor it requires some bleeding edge innovation. So what do all those people do really?..

[pydry]

Probably corporate sales. It's the one part of their business which is labor intensive and won't scale.

[havefunbesafe]

Answer: they don't. Support via docusign is also relatively non-existent.

[crazygringo]

> how can they possibly need over 7000 people?

I will paste my comment from the last time this was asked 4 months ago, an HN thread "Ask HN: Seriously, steelman this please. 7,400 employees at Docusign?" with 159 points [1]:

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33012137

--

It's quite easy to figure out if you look at their annual report, for example. [1] Literally the first two pages of content explain, emphasis mine:

> To address this opportunity, our sales and marketing strategy focuses on businesses at all scales, from global enterprise to local very small businesses (“VSBs”). We rely on our direct sales force and partnerships to sell to enterprises and commercial businesses, and our web-based self-service channel to sell to VSBs, which is the most cost-effective way to reach our smallest customers.

> Hundreds of integrations with other mainstream systems where work gets done, such as applications offered by Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, and Workday.

> Globally adopted. Our expertise in electronic signature and other agreement technologies is truly global. This is key, given that different regions have different laws, standards and cultural norms. We assist multiple parties in different jurisdictions to complete agreements and other documents in a legally valid manner

> Vertical offerings. We offer enhanced solutions tailored to particular industries, such as financial services, real estate, life sciences, and government. In some cases, these may be variants of a product like DocuSign eSignature —for example, our additional DocuSign eSignature options for assisting with compliance with U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations. In other cases, it may be a distinct product for an industry, such as Rooms for Real Estate, which includes task management, templates, and workflow for real estate transactions.

You can see from their expenses that they spend two and a half times as much on sales and marketing than they do on research and development.

It's very easy to imagine how you could need 2,000 engineers to build and support e.g. 500 different integrations and 50 industry-specific solutions, all of which need to be actively maintained for compatibility. And then an even larger salesforce that is selling to companies literally across the globe. Not to mention the lawyers and legal analysts attached to all of those.

Docusign isn't a mere PDF viewer computer program, it's a business that provides ironclad legal services that are vetted by lawyers and guaranteed for your industry's specific legal needs in the countries where you operate.

[1] https://s22.q4cdn.com/408980645/files/doc_financials/2022/ar...

[PuppyTailWags]

I assume a whole lot og the 7000 are talking with government, lawyers, etc. DocuSign has to make sure they are legally in the ok and have to comply with every applicable government they have a client in/might have a client in.

[Spooky23]

Sales and marketing. Docusign has a good sales org that stands out from its competitors.

[akomtu]

If you were a docusign top manager, would you rather be a humble manager in a corner office with a few reports, or a transformative SVP boldly leading an army of 7000 people into the era of AI technologies?

[whitemary]

Inspirational!

[ctvo]

> ... but I'm floored by the size of these companies...

> But still... even with all that... for the services DocSign provides... how can they possibly need over 7000 people?

I don't know. It's a ~15 billion market cap. business. Is it surprising that it has thousands of employees?

The undertone of these comments, even if unintended, is these business are bloated, wasteful, and there's judgement on the skills of the engineers (e.g. Twitter's case, look how well it still runs with no engineers!) working there.

It's the same boring take of Instagram and WhatsApp before they were bought and had to deal with legal, and abuse, and international regulations, and and and were ran with a team of less than 10.