Personal fast crash

by **lowem** » Tue 08 Mar 2005, 23:46:14

So much for the debate on whether it will turn out to be a fast or a slow crash. You could say the fast crash has happened to me. The entire R&D department got axed, including myself, my wife, even the CTO (and later on, his wife too), and another two long-time colleagues.

We have built a software platform to be proud of, which has been deployed to hundreds of customer sites worldwide - with major customers including Sun Microsystems, HP, and Motorola, among others. We have reduced costs by integrating open-source libraries into the system. We have automated almost everything that there was to be automated - builds, testing, everything. But all that is in the past now ...

I have been blogging on the race to the bottom, on the massive job cuts happening across the tech industry, on how India and China have been 10x cheaper than the Americans and at least 2-3x cheaper than even us in Singapore. Well, it's happened - that particular wave has hit. R&D activities will soon be moved to China - and the Singapore R&D team is to be sacrificed.

I may not be blogging quite so regularly now. The focus now is to find a job.

(2005-03-09 10:48:25 SGT) [Musings] # Comments [1]

http://www.post1.net/page/lowem/20050308#fast_crash

by **Jack** » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 00:16:39

Good luck on your job search.

by **jato** » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 00:20:00

Sorry to hear the bad news. Good luck to you and your family.

by **wzx** » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 00:21:28

Sorry to hear about that lowem....

Hope both your wife and you find something real soon.

Emigration may be an option...if things get worse.
here is an IT guy who recently lost his job too. He is leaving.
http://singaporeserf.blogspot.com/

by **TrueKaiser** » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 00:30:46

good luck, at least you got into the industry though. it dried up for me before i even finished my education.
on the bright side we are both in the unemployement group.

by **BorneoRagnarok** » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 02:56:37

I open my mouth but no words come out. Peak oil decides everything.
Wish you luck in finding new job.

by **Mercani** » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 05:18:43

Our company also decided to get rid of the design center here in Turkey for cost-cutting reasons. They will be more focusing on India.

We will either be sold to another company or closed in 6 months.

I guess everybody will have some kind of his/her own crash. soft or hard.

My wife is working at an airline company ! So I am not very hopeful for her, too.

by GD » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 06:13:10

Very sorry to hear your news lowem. I have also been insisting that the high tech sector is now in permanent terminal decline. I am also a R&D programmer and I could well be joining you soon, my company's stocks are plummeting!
I have been looking at sustainable career options as I think it's the only real "growth" industry left. However, after seeing the true viability of renewables, I'm not even sure that will see me through.
Anyways I've got to get myself trained up while I still have a wage.

Best of luck to you and your family,
Gareth.

by **Doly** » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 07:38:50

Going from the personal to the general - do you realise that, from the personal level, no matter how slowly the economy goes into recession, each time a person loses their job they will have a personal fast crash?

So maybe all the discussions about soft and hard landing are pointless. For each individual person, it's going to be hard. So prepare for that.

by **smiley** » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 08:33:21

Extremely sorry to hear that Iowem.

I just had to switch jobs, so I know how tough it is out there on the job market. Luckily I found a new job in defense research but it has been hell getting it. There were about sixty other applicants.

Anyway best of luck to you and your wive.

by **rostov** » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 08:46:44

Extremely distressed and sad that this had to happen to you, lomem. And I only just got to touch base with you after finding out we live in the same darned island.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', ' ')a new job in defense research.

by **mgibbons19** » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 09:23:36

Bummer and good luck.

by GD » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 09:29:00

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rostov', '
')
Now this got me thinking -- since we're all PO aware, we should be quite job-aware. Defense is one area we could leech until TSHTF. If there are other job areas that will sustain as long as possible, that could be one area I could also help you look for a job here, while I'm leeching off mine.

Comments, anyone?

by **wkwp** » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 21:21:17

all the best in looking for a new job.... i went thru the same phase back in 03, so i can sort of understand ur feelings.
do take care of urself and especially ur wifey's health.

by **lowem** » Wed 09 Mar 2005, 23:26:18

Thanks for the well wishes everyone.

What I'm doing now is calling up and emailing friends and contacts everywhere for anything related that I may be able to do. It will now be a haze of sending out resumes, going for interviews and so on. Won't have much time to blog and all that, but I'll still try to lurk around here a little (have to keep track of PO issues).

Yup, Doly is right, we may be talking about fash vs slow crash, about the economy in general, but when it comes to oneself, it's always a personal fast & hard crash.

As wzx pointed out (good read, thanks), the other Singapore blogger also said pretty much the same thing, that he doesn't care how's the economic situation going to be like for the average Singapore citizen, what matters is one's own personal situation! It may be called a selfish point of view, but he's quite right in a way.

And rostov, yeah, I didn't know you were right on this board all along. For the rest, well, rostov runs a local online parenting forum where my wife and I visit quite regularly - the sysadmin guy. Great to "meet" up with you, I wish it were under better circumstances.

GD, yep, the IT/tech industry in the more "expensive" / "developed" countries will be in a sh**load of trouble. It's still booming over in India, China and soon, Africa though - that's where the jobs went, have been going, and will keep going (till physical resource limits are hit).

And Shannymara, that's right I think it's very telling that R&D has been sacrificed. If even R&D cannot be done here then, my question is, what else is there left?

Everyone else, thanks for all your comments and replies, even if I'm not able to respond to each one individually.

I'll keep everyone updated - now going back to stare at the job ads and updating the resume and all that ...

by **BabyPeanut** » Thu 10 Mar 2005, 18:42:24

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'I') think it is very telling that the research and development department got axed.

by **wzx** » Fri 11 Mar 2005, 00:30:54

I think you should look into applying for some Permanent Resident in another country as a safety net. With your qualifications I m sure you are legible for a few. Geography has been a great asset to us but this time I don't think its going to be kind to this country. This time no packing up and simply leaving for virgins lands as our forefathers did.

by **julianj** » Fri 11 Mar 2005, 09:45:04

Sorry to hear about that. Good luck in your job hunt.

Best wishes,

Julian

by **Laurasia** » Fri 11 Mar 2005, 23:12:35

lowem: Best of luck in finding a job for both you and your wife. Keep us informed when you get the time.

Best of luck!

L.

by **lowem** » Thu 14 Apr 2005, 20:33:42

I did say I'll keep you guys updated, so here it is ...

Second chance : A new hope

Taking a break from the oil & gas, doom & gloom (incidentally, oil has dropped just below $50 right now) :

Well, this is certainly an improvement over the events first related in "Fast Crash".

I am now holding in my hands a letter of employment (aka "offer letter") from an American MNC, for the position of a Java R&D engineer (though that's not the exact title), and I will be starting work at this company in about 2 weeks' time. They are doing projects related to logistics and defence (okay, I probably have to brush up on my American spelling now : *ahem* "defense"), with a cumulative worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Career-wise, it will be a move into a real R&D environment. I will no longer be among the lone one or two engineers in a small company trying to do some R&D work. Money-wise, well, it's a permanent position, they not only matched but actually upped my pay, and there are quite a few stock options to boot.

This is a second chance in more ways than one. Last year, around this time, I was headhunted (via another agent) and went for an interview at this company. I passed the technical tests, and talked to them for just over 3 hours (!!). On what, you may ask. Well, on things like how the Java JDK was designed, and how it works. We talked on and on about the internals of java.*, so to speak. They were about to offer me a position when top management came over and froze hiring (probably due to it being an election year, I'd suppose).

This year, this time, after the retrenchment announcement, another agent re-introduced me to this company. So I went for a second interview. This time, we talked for about an hour and a half. And this time, I got the job.

That's about all I have to say on this for now. Back to the regular oil, gas, doom & gloom ...

(2005-04-15 00:19:20 SGT) [Musings] # Comments [0]

http://www.post1.net/page/lowem/2005041 ... a_new_hope

Personal fast crash

Personal fast crash

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