Symantec lets Australian engineers go

Global security giant Symantec this morning confirmed plans to make some of its Sydney-based engineers redundant, with the roles to go offshore.

Reacting to a story first broken by the AustralianIT, a spokesperson for the company said it was making “some” redundancies within one of its engineering teams based in North Sydney.

“At a global level, Symantec is consolidating a small number of positions in certain development and product engineering roles to improve productivity and drive operational efficiencies,” they said. “At the present time, we are in consultation with the affected staff whose roles may be impacted by this decision and are exploring the viability of alternative employment options within the organisation”.

It remains unclear how many research staff the company has in Australia. It is currently hiring in Australia in other areas, however — with its careers site currently listing open positions for a senior compensation analyst and a principal security consultant.

The spokesperson assured customers there would be no change to their services.

“Symantec remains committed to its customers and partners in Australia and these changes do not affect customer-facing teams in this region,” they said. “We have a strong team in place that remains focused on providing market leading products and the best quality service and support to our Australian customers and partners. Symantec will continue to have a R&D team located at the North Sydney site.”

Symantec is known to make strong revenues from its Australian business. For example, in 2006, the company reported that it pulled in local revenues of $130 million, a figure which had jumped almost 40 percent on the previous year. At that point, Analyst firm IDC estimated that the Australia and New Zealand security solutions market would grow at a compound annual rate of 10.6 per cent to reach $US1.6 billion by 2011.

Much of the company’s local research and development headcount locally is likely to have come from its 2008 buy of Australian company PC Tools, which at that stage employed 200 staff worldwide, with the bulk in Sydney — including North Sydney — and Melbourne. Symantec didn’t directly comment on the PC Tools business today, but it is believed the job cuts have not come from within Symantec’s consumer division, which houses PC Tools.

Image credit: Marcel Hol, royalty free