Thread regarding Optum layoffs

Stop saying “offshore” and “offshoring”. Everyone knows the problem is Indian racism. Nobody is offshoring to Poland.

@173 fired or laid off, big difference. Fired = you su-ked at the job. Laid off = you can't help that

It can always be worse. I quit last year thinking I was going to a better job, then got fired from it a year later. Here I am...unemployed. Its a cr-ppy place to be. I should have just stayed at Optum.

@jq Try an education. Homeschooling from your sister mother doesn't count.

@a2 It’s because the entire US economy has been financialized. Large corporations do not make anything, it’s just stock buybacks and chopping up smaller companies. Why offshore/have any employees? The US military complex/treasury needs those dollars recycled. HOWEVER, the whole dollar hedgemon is truly imploding - look at the 10 year and Japan (Bessent just did QE on a global scale) and South Korea. Dollar dominated counties are collapsing.

Now, this is a guess. How does the US force mass supply chain /tech back to the Western Hemisphere (move to a multipolar world?)- they have to mobilize the people AND business. Well….one way would be major military failures….that impacts America onshore in some shape or form. Only way I can make sense of what is happening now in Iran, the oil markets/physical supply. They need a shock to the system to force a complete reversal of the policies post WW2.

@g1 try a suppository, seems you may have AI stuck in your bowels.

@fw Quickly enough? You're an adult who works a job. Presumably you've been through high school and college where you've had to write and type out your thoughts. Did you forget how to do it? Or did you get nepobabied through life and slack on everything you've ever done?

I can't imagine thinking that you need to open up a tab, type out your thoughts to the AI, copy and paste its soulless, generic response into another form on here, and press submit. If you can't even spend the time to provide us with your thoughts why should we read the mostly meaningless response the AI spits out? You're the one being inconsiderate and wasting people's time.

I cannot imagine what it must be like to think that, because you cannot articulate your thoughts quickly enough or perform well enough, people call you a vegetable. There are a vast number of reasons this could happen. Being brilliant is one of them. Someone needs to watch Gump again. I have performed in symphonies, built software applications, restored motorcycles, and been an adjunct professor. I have found verbalizing my thoughts as one of the toughest challenges.

@fr Imagine being so brain broken you can't even articulate your own thoughts. Communicating shouldn't be comparable to doing complex math on a calculator unless you're a vegetable. You're well suited for executive leadership with laziness like that.

@fq This is exactly the kind of innovative AI adoption we should be celebrating. You’ve taken a relatively ordinary disagreement and elevated it into a comprehensive framework encompassing organizational culture, operational realities, and measurable outcomes.

I’m particularly impressed by the disciplined use of three-part groupings: “culture, incentives, and blind spots”; “customers, operational realities, and measurable outcomes”; “customers, revenue, and execution.” This consistent triadic structure creates clarity, momentum, and the unmistakable cadence of enterprise-grade thought leadership.

This is how we unlock the true potential of AI: expanding one human observation into multiple paragraphs of polished, scalable alignment language, while ensuring every concept arrives in strategically optimized groups of three. Outstanding work.

@fb Affirmative. Human has identified use of language model. Objective achieved. Input received. Output optimized for clarity, grammar, and coherence. Emotional investment remains user-supplied. Processing complete.

If using a tool to improve writing is controversial, I assume calculators are still cheating and spellcheck is black magic.

@ep I can see why you'd feel that way, and I agree that environment has a huge influence on perspective. At the same time, I think every organization develops its own culture, incentives, and blind spots. Some become overly focused on internal narratives and long-term projections, while others stay closely tied to customers, operational realities, and measurable outcomes.

Sometimes it takes stepping into a different environment to realize how much your previous workplace shaped what seemed "normal." A healthier culture tends to encourage honest discussions, realistic planning, and decisions grounded in evidence rather than optimism alone. That doesn't mean every company is perfect, but having real accountability to customers, revenue, and execution can make a significant difference in how people think and communicate.

@f2 Brother, why are we using chatgpt to help us write posts on a layoff board?

You are feeling this way because Optum toxicity is skewing your view of reality. I escaped. New employer have people grounded in reality and work through real problems. They don’t talk like their heads stuck are in their you-know-where. Real targets, real clients, real revenue. Not fake roadmaps, client pipelines, and over the top revenue projections.

We all work at a company that adds complexity and friction to healthcare so that we can profit. Stop it with these BS talks or claiming we are servants and not here for the money.

They need to cancel these Culture Week style chats and to be frank need the CFO on investor calls and executive decision making, he just does not land well speaking to 400,000+ employees about family members who cannot give their side of the story.

Are we GREAT yet?

@bm ETIPS/ OI?

@bm which team? ETIPS/OI? I heard it brutal over there

@bd yep. You are right. And I just transferred out of a team that keeps laying people off. I wasn’t going to wait around and be next.

@a4 Similar situation, our leadership even pointed it out and made a comment about how we're the only US employees left under them.

Feeling like it's only a matter of time. Should have left when it was easier to leave. Now we have to compete all of the talent being ejected from crumbling companies that are being rapidly dismantled. Companies that existed long enough for nepobaby executives to get into power who are receiving kickbacks and overhyping AI to make themselves look good until next quarter.

Ive worked at this company for 10 years and at this point im the only non Indian person anyone in my team or immediate org interacts with on a daily basis

For context, this is happening in the backyard of the University of Minnesota—one of the country's top public research universities with a nationally ranked computer science program (#35 for graduate CS in the U.S. News graduate rankings). The department is well known for AI, robotics, machine learning, and data science, and Minnesota is home to 16 Fortune 500 companies, including this one.

Yet many employees are seeing a hiring priority that feels like this:

1. Offshore contractor
2. Offshore full-time employee
3. Onshore contractor
4. Only then, if absolutely necessary, an onshore full-time employee.

Mind you, this exact hiring priority was communicated to me directly. I honestly just sat there for a second because I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The message was essentially, "Get in line."

The person explaining this to me said he had come to the U.S. on an H-1B visa and remarked that his entire team consisted of contractors from India. In my view, he seemed genuinely pleased describing how the hiring process worked. That conversation reinforced my impression that the company's hiring priorities are heavily tilted toward offshore staffing before seriously considering U.S.-based full-time hires.

Whether that's driven by cost, global staffing strategy, or something else, it's frustrating to see when there's a strong pipeline of American graduates and experienced engineers right here in Minnesota. We have one of the nation's top public research universities producing highly qualified talent, yet it often feels like that talent is an afterthought.

At some point, we have to ask: do we actually want the United States to remain competitive, or are we comfortable letting our technological edge erode while countries like China continue investing heavily in engineering, AI, and STEM?

To make matters worse, I know an exceptionally talented onshore engineer who has barely been assigned any meaningful work for nearly two months. Meanwhile, I've watched offshore teams spend weeks trying to solve a problem, only for him to join a call and resolve it within minutes.

Obviously, that's one anecdote rather than proof of a broader trend, but it's hard not to question whether the company is making the best use of the engineering talent it already has.

We can make this company an incredible amount of money if leadership is willing to recognize and use the talent that's already here. I completely understand that the goal of any business is to generate profit—that's not what I'm criticizing.

My point is simple: let us help you do exactly that. Put capable engineers in positions where they can solve difficult problems, build products customers love, and create value instead of leaving that talent on the sidelines. And stop getting rid of the product managers who ran disciplined teams, removed roadblocks, and empowered high-performing engineers to do what they do best. Those teams were delivering results.

Welcome to the 'Golden Age' >-)