The headquarters is located on Santana Row in San Jose, an eight-story structure sandwiched between eateries and retail establishments—the kind of address that indicates a successful business. Additionally, NetApp appears to be doing well on paper. That’s the part that consistently surprises people. For the most recent quarter, the company reported revenue of about $1.71 billion, up about 4% year over year. The management reported record profitability and rapid growth. Then the layoffs resumed during the third week of May.
Employees have begun to identify this rhythm aloud. One word that is frequently used on message boards and on Blind is “again.” Layoffs twice a year can be exhausting, as one Glassdoor reviewer put it simply. That’s not a grievance regarding one poor week. It describes a pattern, and unlike one-time restructurings, patterns are more difficult to explain away.
The timing is striking. Several current and former employees believe that cuts are made close to the end of a fiscal quarter in order to tidy up the numbers before they are reported. They might be acting cynically. It’s also possible that they’ve just witnessed it enough times to identify the choreography. The proximity is difficult to ignore because NetApp’s fiscal year ended in late April and the company is scheduled to discuss its full-year results with analysts shortly.
There hasn’t been much of a shift in the official language between rounds. Previous layoffs, according to NetApp, were a “strategic organizational realignment” intended to “optimize cost structures” and address “the rapid rise of AI.” The company reportedly cut 700 employees, or roughly 6% of its global workforce, after cutting about 4% of its workforce last year. For those inside, the May round feels different, in part because of the people it affected. Posts from impacted employees claim that managers and entire customer-success teams were fired on a single call, with one employee claiming it had nothing to do with performance.
That particular detail is important. The story speaks for itself when a business that is barely making ends meet decides to lay off employees. The explanation needs to be more convincing when a company reports all-time high margins. The executives at NetApp have warned about “unprecedented inflation” in memory prices in the same earnings calls that celebrate flash-array records. NetApp’s leadership views AI as both an opportunity and a pressure. The costs of the components are actual. So is the question of whether reducing headcount is the best course of action when the top line is expanding.
Reading the inner monologue gives the impression that there has been a cultural shift. Training materials, recent hires from Google and Microsoft, and job postings in Bangalore on the same day that colleagues elsewhere were informed are all mentioned. A portion of that is the typical turbulence of a multinational corporation. For those who are losing their jobs, some of it conveys a message about the direction of the work. It’s difficult to determine which interpretation is more accurate, and the company is only using language from press releases.
Tech has previously witnessed this. One of the most significant business decisions of 2026 has been profitable companies laying off employees while claiming efficiency and artificial intelligence. NetApp is by no means alone; HP announced thousands of layoffs during the same period. However, it leaves a strange aftertaste to watch it happen at a company that consistently outperforms its own advice. One thing is clear from the numbers. Another is said in the phone calls. It’s still unclear, and it probably won’t be for a few more quarters, whether the strategy succeeds or just hollows out the teams that customers truly rely on.
