Snyk’s Evolution: A Message From CEO Peter McKay

Below is a public version of a message Peter McKay sent to all employees earlier today. 

Team,

As we’ve discussed over the past several quarters, we anticipated a tough start to 2023, but we were prepared to accelerate growth in the back half of the year. We now know that the challenging market conditions are likely to persist into early 2024, so we must once again adapt.

While this is undeniably difficult, we’ve chosen to take advantage of this moment to evolve our structure and focus as well as address feedback from our customers and all of you. 

Today, I’m sharing three critical adjustments to best position Snyk for both near- and long-term success:

1. Rightsize our GTM organization to further focus on customer success, particularly in the enterprise sector;

2. Prioritize solidifying our AppSec leadership; and,

3. Simplify our organizational layers to get closer to our customers and improve our overall agility, speed and communication.

Developer security is more important than ever, and today we remain the leader of this category we pioneered. But, as the markets in which we operate continue to quickly change, it’s crucial we evolve our strategy to further our growth. We’ll maintain our leadership position by solidifying our AppSec market leadership (including satisfying the growing demand for software supply chain security solutions) and staying close to our customers. We will also invest in our partner ecosystem to ramp partner growth and drive scale for customer outcomes. 

With these changes, 128 Snykers are leaving us today, primarily from GTM and our Corporate Functions. I want to thank these Snykers for the important contributions they’ve made. We will support them during this transition and wish them luck in their future adventures.

Below is some further context on Snyk’s evolution.

Our early success was built on our unique product-led approach that empowered and equipped global developers to embrace security. Together, we took concepts like “Shift Left” and “DevSecOps” and turned them into reality for our early customers.

But as the developer security market has matured, our customer base has evolved from early adopters to the early majority, including some of the world’s largest, most complex organizations. These global brands are counting on our team to deliver on our developer security vision, which we know is so much more than a simple product purchase – it’s a cultural revolution. Simply put, they need more help from us.

Fully seizing this enterprise opportunity will require infusing new skill sets and enterprise expertise into Sales, R&D, Customer Experience and Partner/Channel in the near term. We’ll also pivot from transactional customer engagement to a more consultative approach that extends post sale. It’s critical that we set ourselves up to make all of our customers more successful, allowing them to fully reap the benefits of DevSecOps.

In addition, under Manoj and Pat’s leadership, we’re reinforcing our focus on innovation, agility and the speed at which we are able to enhance our leading Developer Security Platform to meet customer needs.

It’s never easy to say goodbye to Snykers and friends who have helped shape the foundation of our company, but I am confident that with these changes, Snyk is positioned to capitalize on the enormous opportunity in front of us.

Best,

Peter