Five years after acquiring the Durham operation in its $1 billion all-cash buyout of Nimble Storage, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) has added more than 100 employees – and is still hiring at its newly renovated office in the Bull City.
When it was acquired, Nimble had 170 employees in the Triangle.Today, HPE has nearly 300 employees.
Ryan Mitchell, site lead in Durham, was previously director of quality assurance for Nimble Storage. Mitchell, a veteran of IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Lenovo, admits to having “low expectations” when the HPE deal was announced. He was used to seeing smaller companies lose their identities in acquisition deals, he said.
“I’m pleasantly surprised with how they’ve embraced the team,” he said of legacy HPE, adding that in addition to recognizing the value of its technology, “They also identified that there was a strong engineering team that backed up those innovative products.”
Nimble team members – himself included – have found themselves in leadership roles, Mitchell said. And the company continues to see value in what Durham is delivering.
Competition for talent, however, is high – particularly in areas where HPE is focusing much of its recruiting, in software engineering and product management. Mitchell said the firm’s strategy in winning over talent from other tech firms in the Triangle comes down to culture.
“We have a no jerks, work hard, play hard mentality,” he said. “At this site and HPE in general, we want to make sure we deliver our products, but we have good morale and don’t burn ourselves out.”
He said it starts with accessing talent early through internships. And it continues with special team-building activities, from casino nights to chili cook-offs.
HPE, like many of its tech counterparts, went largely remote in 2020. But its newly renovated site now “encourages” in-person working. HPE allows its teams to set their own schedules, which typically includes two to three days in the office a week, though there is no set corporate requirement for most positions.
The Durham site includes several business functions but primarily houses part of HPE’s storage business unit, including hardware and software engineering, product management and customer success. Current products the Durham site is involved in include HPE Alletra 5000 and Data Protection solutions, according to a company spokesman.
Tuesday, the firm held what it called a “grand reopening celebration” of its renovated Durham campus on Swabia Court. The office was recently redesigned to foster flexible working arrangements.
HPE, based in Texas, is a storage technology firm founded in 2015 as part of the split of the Hewlett Packard Company (now HP Inc).