Elastic

There is a powerful and flexible product and platform, great coworkers and managers at the director and below level, and solid compensation and benefits, though they are getting less generous.

Senior leadership and culture have been on a gradual downward trajectory from a high starting point for several years, but enough solid people remained to maintain my faith in the company. 2026 has seriously challenged that. Senior leadership is AI-pilled and is assuming anecdotal and isolated examples of extreme efficiency boosts in certain areas are easily translatable to many more functions, despite a lack of evidence that this is the case so far.

Everyone is trying to go faster with AI, but we're really just feeling busier, and a lack of coordinated strategy means tons of duplicate effort and half-baked AI experiments that lack adoption. Now add a layoff that was very poorly communicated and coincided with the second reorg in as many months that is supposed to enable us to go faster after losing high-performing teammates. It really smacks of leadership that lacks strategy and is desperate to go fast like a startup again despite operating under very different constraints as a large enterprise with enterprise customers.

Worst of all, senior leadership messaging has been tone-deaf and defensive toward skeptical voices in Q&As. The vibe here has never been worse in my tenure. Lots of great people remain, but lots have left, including voluntarily, which speaks volumes. There is a pervasive sense that more will be eying the exits given the dramatic turn this company has made this year.

Hopefully, things will settle down a bit so we can get back to doing our jobs without so much chaos. Even if it does, it's going to take a long time to restore trust.

Ask ChatGPT to evaluate your messaging this year and how it likely came across to your staff. I hear it's great for career advice.