From senior leadership down to junior developers - most of the engineering team was let go. Only bits of PS, DevOps and Sales are still around. Just a month ago I was showing new features to the whole company and talking about a promotion to SDE‑2. April was supposed to be the appraisal season, but it got pushed to June. Then came a 1‑1 HR call. In the past few months, management had us documenting workflows, daily tasks, recording internal process videos, building AI agents for our work and creating video test cases. I'm still processing everything. One day you're planning long‑term growth, the next day the whole org vanishes. For anyone who's been through a sudden layoff: how did you bounce back mentally and get the job‑search grind going again? Edit: Since many asked for the name‑and‑shame, my company is Quark Software and the product is QuarkXpress, a legacy product from the 1980s with a loyal customer base. Zax.ai bought it a month ago; they have a track record of wiping out companies and re‑branding their customers under the Trilogy banner. Even though my product was consistently profitable, they shut down development of every major and minor release, saying they don't need an R&D department. Their focus is just to steal customers and rake in profit each year without any development, and my company became just another victim.
Which location, bro? Bangalore? Is it PBC or WITCH?
Name and shame.
Please share the company name, why the hesitation on Reddit?
Name and shame, please.
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
Also I bet this decision by your company will bite them in the butt.
Let's make a list of all the nonsense companies doing random layoffs and keep our own database so folks can refer to it while applying.
I was laid off in March. The fear of having no income pushed me mentally to start the grind, and I'm still job‑searching.
Laying off the R&D team is like chopping off your own foot. What is management thinking – letting AI do the work?
Mostly it's because of non‑technical, arrogant leadership, and many toxic firms are heading the same way. Still, strong engineers eventually find a new spot. Wishing you the best and hoping things turn around soon!
I was surprised when I saw the name Quark – it felt like spotting a relic on my morning walk. QuarkXpress launched in 1987 and was the world‑leading DTP software in the early '90s. Its rival back then was Aldus PageMaker. Aldus was later bought by Adobe, which rebranded PageMaker into InDesign. Adobe also released Adobe CS at about two‑thirds the price and later Adobe CC at about one‑third the price of QuarkXpress. Quark missed all those trains and just clung to its ageing user base. Even Adobe now struggles against Canva, Figma and the AI image‑generator giants. So you can see how ancient QuarkXpress has become. Dear OP, treat this as a turning point in your life and move on. You were like a passenger on the Titanic who didn't notice the iceberg. Keep walking, don't look back, and succeed.