Who’s Hiring (BAE Systems, Amazon, ARM) Who’s Firing (Oath, Brocade Cisco)

The end of 2017 brings mostly good news on the engineering jobs front, unless your company was recently acquired.

First, the bad news, by the numbers:

560

That’s the latest layoff announced by Oath, Verizon’s new umbrella organization that encompasses the former AOL, Yahoo, and the Huffington Post. This follows 2,100 cuts just after the Yahoo acquisition. No word on exactly where, geographically, the ax is falling.

308

Broadcom’s recently completed acquisition of Brocade Communications means that at least 360 employees in San Jose will be terminated, according to a filing with the Employment Development Department. This announcement comes after a layoff of 96 from Brocade’s San Jose office, blamed on delays in closing the acquisition.

60

Cisco in November laid off 60 employees from cloud operations, mostly from two companies it had acquired, according to The Information. This follows a string of cuts throughout 2017.

75

In December, ABC News reported that 75 engineers working in wind turbine design and related technologies were told by General Electric in Schenectady, N.Y., that their jobs were being eliminated, and that number is expected to rise.

Now the good news:

1,200

BAE Electronic Systems in November indicated that by the end of 2017 it will have hired about 1,200 engineers, manufacturers, and technicians, including 300 interns, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader, with more hires planned for 2018.

1,000

ARM, during a press roundtable at ARM TechCon in October, revealed that the company had hired 1,000 new staff members, mostly engineers, during 2017. Those new employees increased ARM’s total workforce by 20 percent.

1,000

Amazonannounced in November that it will add 1,000 new tech jobs to its Vancouver operations by 2020. Ninety percent of the current Vancouver staff members are software engineers or programmers; the new hires will be an unspecified mix of technical employees and HR and marketing staffers.

500

AXISCADES, a Bangalore-based product engineering form, said in November that it would set up a new North American headquarters in Indiana with 500 new employees, mostly engineers.

470

Mastercardannounced in December that it will add 470 jobs to the 250 R&D employees already working at its Manhattan technology hub. This isn’t quite as exciting as it seems—the company is giving itself until 2024 to bring the new workers on board.

300–500

Also announcing vague long-term plans was Shopify; the company announced in October that it will add 300 to 500 engineers, product managers, UX designers, and other employees to its Waterloo headquarters.

239

Oculus, the VR company now owned by Facebook, got Seattle-area engineers excited in November, when Geekwire reported that it had listed 117 openings in its Redmond, Wash., location, and six more in Seattle. The company also is adding 71 to its staff at Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters.