HackerOne Layoffs Hit 12% of Workforce Amid Volatile Economy

HackerOne layoffs are impacting about 12% of its workforce due to how the volatile economy is impacting it and its customers.

HackerOne’s Marten Mickos

HackerOne CEO Marten Mickos announced the layoffs in an email to employees. HackerOne is a bug bounty and penetration testing platform. Its workforce totals more than 450, meaning more than 50 are part of the layoffs.

The HackerOne layoffs are impacting workers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and other countries.

“HackerOne, like many tech companies, has been navigating the global economic situation and the resulting shifts in our market,” Mickos said. “Our strategic plan includes investment in new product families and expanding the capabilities of our platform to expand into the enterprise. A little over a year ago, I authorized the continued hiring of new employees to fulfill this strategy. However, we did not anticipate the degree to which the overall economic situation is affecting us, with smaller companies running out of money and larger ones taking longer to make purchasing decisions. The new products we brought to market didn’t perform the way we wanted them to. Our bets on hiring and new products proved to be too big, and we must now restructure our teams to be successful in the future.”

HackerOne Layoffs One-Time Event

HackerOne is among the more than 40 companies doing business in the channel that have announced layoffs this year. Among the latest are Virgin Media, Cisco and Ingram Micro.

“We’ve designed this reduction in force as a one-time event,” Mickos said. “We don’t claim to have perfect visibility into our future financial performance or the macroeconomic climate, but we unequivocally wanted to take a single action and move forward with confidence.”

The HackerOne layoffs are necessary for long-term success, he said.

“HackerOne remains a category leader,” Mickos said. “We are one of the most important contributors to cybersecurity worldwide. We plan to be better, stronger and faster when an improved business climate ultimately emerges.”

The CEO said the decision is painful because “we hired each one of you to pursue our strategy and build an outstanding business.”

“We have a clear mission and a strong company culture,” he said. “Each one of you is a devoted team member, investing your time and mind into the success of HackerOne. Now as we must say goodbye to some of you, I want to express my deep appreciation of your unwavering commitment to the company.”