Nanotronika Slashes 20% of Staff: 'Optimization' or Total Meltdown?
It is truly awe-inspiring to watch Element Group attempt to pivot its engineering darling Nanotronika by essentially thinning the herd. Nothing says 'innovation' like politely asking a fifth of your staff to quit because the vision changed overnight.
When the new management team from Element Group took the wheel after the Sber acquisition, they decided that having a fully staffed engineering team was perhaps a bit too much luxury. Now, roughly 20% of the workforce at Nanotronika has been cordially invited to resign either voluntarily or via a mutual agreement.
The company, which was launched in 2023 to pioneer fancy things like ion implantation and chemical-mechanical polishing, seems to be struggling with the whole 'making money' part of the business. Last year, Nanotronika managed to double its net losses, hitting nearly 146 million rubles while only pulling in about 68 million in revenue.
Management claims this isn't a crisis, but rather a surgical 'optimization' because their current project load doesn't justify having people around for analytics or strategic planning. The Nanotronika employees weren't given formal redundancy papers, just a nudge to pack their things and go.
While Element Group insists they are helping people find jobs elsewhere in the group, the optics of gutting a specialized R&D center for high-end microelectronics aren't exactly screaming 'tech superpower'. It turns out that building the machines that build the chips is significantly harder than just announcing you are going to do it.
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