Big Blue Seeing Red

By Wayne Hippo

May 22, 2020

In what can only be a surprise announcement, IBM’s new CEO, Arvind Krishna, announced major cuts to the company workforce. While exact figures were not disclosed, a company source told the Wall Street Journal that the layoffs will affect “several thousand people.”

Last year, IBM completed a $34 billion acquisition of Raleigh-based Red Hat. Krishna, who took over the CEO position in April of this year, had stated in an interview in early May that he had no plans to split the company, make more divestitures, and was even open to the idea of making acquisitions.

Is it worth it to work for the big boys?

Layoffs like this one at a large tech leader must make some employees wonder and re-evaluate what’s important. While huge tech companies tend to pay higher wages, the sacrifice is often found in the form of strenuous work hours and the realization that no matter how many exercise bikes they put in the corporate gym, you really are just another fish in the (Big Blue) sea. Layoffs like these hardly allow the tech giants to claim that work with them brings better job security.

Better News from PS Solutions

At a time when the economic downturn and layoffs like these are dominating the national news, at PS Solutions, we are proud to say we are hiring. We are posting new job openings today and into early next week. We are not talking about thousands of jobs, but we are growing. We’re not a tech giant, but a growing tech company with a mission to keep software development jobs in the USA.

We are a small and growing family looking to add talent to our team at a time when many other companies are going the other way. While some deals are not yet finalized, we started posting job openings today and more will be coming over the next week. According to Joe Merilli, one of PS Solutions Managing Partners, “Depending on the response we get from the market, the jobs could ultimately be divided between our three development centers, they could focus on remote work, or be based within client work centers. It’s still really a work in progress that will depend on finding and matching talent to client needs.” Our new jobs will be posted on our web page at www.pssolutions.net and our CareerBuilder page over the next several days.

Sometimes it’s great to be a cog in the wheel with one of the big boys. We think it’s better to be doing great work for clients while making a statement that software development can and should be done in the USA.

Sometimes, less is more.



Wayne Hippo is an owner and Managing Partner of PS Solutions, a software development and consulting firm with offices in Altoona, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, and Wilmington, NC.

You can reach Wayne at whippo@pssolutions.net