Follow-up threads - around PIP & historical context with manager: [https://www.teamblind.com/post/fr6Rwwgt ] - the culture of *hiding stuff* at Cruise (GM), and the timeline of events leading to my firing: https://www.teamblind.com/post/odQfXxN2 - what was communicated and not-communicated as the reasons and motivations for dismissal (in my opinion) [working on it, will post soon] - my take on Cruise, its culture, the company's past and future, and my takes on leadership: [working on it, will post soon] Hi friends, (and some former colleagues), I was told on April 17, by my manager, and HRBP from our org that they are terminating Cruise's contract and my employment. I will keep RSUs vested from 2023, but I won't get any component of LTI for Q1 or any additional bonus promised. This promise was supposed to materialize in cash on April 19, and I was promised compensation for Q1 based on Cruise’s new cash focused compensation framework. The reason mentioned was gaps in performance based on feedback from Q4. I believe this was not fair, planned, timed, with a lot of context that I intend to share. Because I believe Cruise (GM) has wronged me, financially, emotionally, and professionally. I started this thread to share my experience at a personal level with my former colleagues at Cruise on their Blind company space. However, fortunately, or unfortunately, immediately after my post my Blind access became read-only because somehow Blind knows you are no longer employed by a company quicker than your family back home 🙂As a result, I am reposting this thread and try to answer some questions posted in the original thread, and answer questions that is about my personal experience, as a professional, in my previous company here. This is the original thread that I couldn't follow up posting answers: https://www.teamblind.com/post/I-got-fired-by-Cruise-2-days-before-LTI-vest-AMA-FEsFzMfS It is a bittersweet moment for me. Like many, I have gone through a love/hate relationship with my employer, Cruise. I loved the mission, I admire, respect and love many of my former colleagues and I am proud that I have made new friends, and learned from folks who don’t even know that about me. I was a front-line manager (EM2 / L6) at Cruise. I tend to assume and treat myself as a teammate in an engineering team, and avoid a direct/manager attitude. As a manager I take it as my responsibility to manage up and manage down. Working with engineering teams is the best reward for me during my time at Cruise. The most difficult part (that obviously I failed miserably evident by my termination), is managing up. Part of that has been my tendency to try to fight as someone with a skin in the game, to improve my company's culture for the better (based on what I believe is fair and healthy and fit to my morals and convictions). ... hence, a bittersweet moment in my 16 yr career in software. I was never fired in my life, and it is a humbling experience. I like to think of it as a forced opportunity to chill and get myself some, much needed mental health break. That all said to say, I do have a perspective, an experience, some opinions, and some educated guesses or speculations, around my relationship with my former employer, Cruise. I think it’s worth sharing with friends and parties interested. If you don’t know, Cruise is, by all means and purposes, a subsidiary of GM. I don't particularly feel fond of Cruise and AIR/AIF (AI Robotics / AI Foundation) orgs, right now given the timing of my termination and the context around that. But I always strive to be fair, reflective, and flexible in my professional or personal life. I intend to keep that here as well. Three nights ago, the Warriors lost the play-in game and didn’t get to the playoffs. That essentially freed up so much time for me this summer that I don’t have to go to games or follow the NBA anymore until Sept. But then I got fired the next day. And then the next day I learned my great dane’s cancer is back. I am taking a couple of days to chill, grieve, cry, relax, rest, refocus, and play Blind! So you see, now that I have some time on my hand, ask me anything. I may start a couple of separate but related threads if the conversation is getting scattered and/or long. I am choosing to share my identity with my former colleagues based on initials and which org/teams I worked with. I am giving up my anonymity (as much as I love to keep it) in an attempt to stand behind my words and my takes – that’s partly why I am here, writing this story. Cheers, MS, EM2 / MLDP / AIR / exCruise (GM) #cruise #tech #gm #self-driving #review
I skimmed your post (didn’t read in full detail), but I don’t think you mentioned *why* you were fired? Was it due to performance reasons or something else?
I am going into details shortly. My posts (as you see) tend to get very elaborate and long. stay tuned. maybe i post a tldr after the chat.
Are you sure you were not fired for verbose communication?
Preamble: Since my identity is public, I want y'all to know I may or may not be who I claim to be, and I may or may not use an LLM like ChatGPT to generate some paragraphs to share. Thinking about where this thread may take me, in virtual or real life, I choose to give this preamble for future references. Read whatever you choose to read into it. You probably know why I am mentioning this, but if you can’t guess it’s Ok. It’s a legal thing. After all, I won’t post anything or share anything that my lawyer won’t read first (except comments).
then can I ask what is the point of this post? It seems like a lot of fluff tbh
@qWkfNjp it's a necessary preamble for potential future legal battles.
Another Preamble: I intend to confirm my understanding of the separation agreement proposed by Cruise (that I have not signed yet). Especially the severance packet that seems very unfair, and a termination that is meticulously timed to avoid fulfilling promised compensation, and imho motivated by my insistence to share my concerns and risks I observed with senior (technical) leadership of the company. I will detail this in another thread about the context for my termination. However, if I am mistaken, and if my understanding is not correct, I would be the first to acknowledge and report that. I may ask for revisions to the separation packet, and in return, I understand Cruise may include requirements such as removal or abstinence from sharing my experience in online forums such as Blind. I want you (who is reading this now) to know I may or may not fulfill an ask like that and delete my post in future, depending on future developments. I’d like to keep that option available because of foreseen and unforeseen situations that may come up in future. But I prefer to be honest about that, and give this heads-up, to whoever reads this.
Tldr
I will post a TLDR later, promise. Let me take out what's on my chest a bit, and then I'll get to organize content :)
Here’s a summary of questions and comments I saw until Fri (Apr 19) afternoon: -- Questions around what the feedback was that led to my firing. -- Questions around PIP -- Questions and opinions about my manager, my relationship with him and those stories -- Questions about my opinion or takes on different org leaders -- Questions and takes about the culture at Cruise -- Questions around the details of separation agreement proposed by Cruise, and the severance packet associated to that -- Requests for TLDR (definitely coming) I decide to go over them one by one in separate threads. That is to keep the conversation more focused and compartmentalize different threads about my interaction and engagements with our teams, as well as Cruise itself, and its culture +leadership. Please bear with me as I catch up. My answers and posts tend to get long and elaborate, with long sentences, bad punctuation and weak grammar. My typing is slow since my fingers always tremble. And I have to walk the dogs soon. Point being, I may be late, but I’ll come back to engage. Like I said earlier, what’s a better way to fill imposed boredom than Blinding friendlily with friends who know who you are? 🙂
Since my write access to my company's Blind space has been revoked as exCruiser, I really appreciate if someone from Cruise could share a link to this thread on that other post! I hate it to seem like a hit and run, with folks asking questions and me being unavailable to answer
Don't worry OP. The link has been shared :)
Why don’t you put on LinkedIn?
Considering that.
Once you have an elaborate review, I suppose LI, Blind, Glassdoor, etc, they all should be easy to share.
So much text. Can we get a tldr?
Please see follow-up post below on questions around PIP, the context and history/timeline of my runnins with my manager, and some personal judgements to throw around: https://www.teamblind.com/post/fr6Rwwgt
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Sorry to hear this, OP. Companies are using the tech winter to punish tech workers with biased performance reviews and stack ranking. I would avoid sharing your initials since people can identify you based on that, and I don’t anything else to happen to you. Best of luck!
Thank you. I think that might be true. But in this case, Cruise is coming as a subsidiary of GM, which is in automative industry and has obtained Cruise. The corporate behavior and culture followed by GM is quite different from that of common Silicon Valley attitude to talent. GM and many other Auto companies are famous for their cheap moves and contentious relationships with their employee body, especially financially.