is it good or bad for confluent employees?

IBM paid a ~30% premium on the current stock price, so all shareholders (I imagine employees own a bunch of shares) will get a decent chunk of cash.

Some redundant departments (HR, finance, accounting and the like) will be downsized after the acquisition.

Engineering and product will be unaffected in the short term, but in a year or two the IBM culture will start to seep in, and that would be a good time for tenured employees to start planning their exits. That's also when lock-up agreements will expire and the existing leadership of Confluent will depart and be replaced by IBM execs.

It depends a lot on which org they go into, and the motivations of the P&L owner of that division.

IBM is a really big and diverse company, in a way fundamentally different from most other big tech. In a sense, it is completely incoherent to refer to them as a singular entity.

My opinions are my own. I worked at IBM like a decade ago in a role where I could see the radically different motivations of divisions.

From experience, and to slightly refute the sibling replied, good for the confluent peeps that get flagged as being essential to the acquisition, they'll get a retention bonus of 100-300% of base pay spread over three years. The cutting of staff will begin likely in the 3-5 year time frame.

IPO'd at 45, high of 90ish, sold at 30. It depends on the strike price for employees, but its not clear if its universally a good outcome.

Both.

IBM will likely give Confluent employees a large pay package, and then let them go after the merger.

They will get some money in the short term, but they better start looking for another job

edit: btw, it's typical for any acquisition/merger