[dylan604]

If your small team in a big company does not directly generate money, then you’d definitely be ripe for elimination. Time and time again we’ve seen examples of trams that are critical to supporting various revenue generating parts of the company while not directly making money themselves get cut as an “obvious” way to save money when only looking at the books. Been there.

[da_chicken]

The thing is, ending a product that's not making money shouldn't mean eliminating the workers. Those were people you picked, brought in, and have adapted to your culture.

It always strikes me as weird when a product fails and the decision is to eliminate everyone from the product manager down... and then make no other changes. Then they bring in completely new people for whatever the new product line is. Sometimes, sure, an individual or group might cause a product to fail that should otherwise succeed. But it's weird to default to the production team. Is it a design problem? A maintenance problem? A product price problem? A sales and marketing problem? A management problem?

Like, the Pontiac Aztek did not do badly because one welder from Mexico screwed it up. It failed because it was ugly. It was ugly because the styling didn't survive the requirements to use the same parts as the Buick Rendezvous and the same basic platform as the Pontiac Montana. The process of making that vehicle fit into GM at that time killed the product. Today the Chevrolet Equinox, a direct descendent, is one of the best selling vehicles on the road at a time when there's a lot more competition.

[e12e]

> Time and time again we’ve seen examples of trams that are critical to supporting various revenue generating parts of the company while not directly making money themselves get cut as an “obvious” way to save money when only looking at the books.

Love how your typo turned into a beautiful metaphor for infrastructure being cut.

Save the trams!

[Boldened15]

Some are kind to eng ICs, you’re not laid off from the company just given time to join another team. As you can still be a high-performer with context on company culture/tech stack while on a non-revenue-generating team.