I know that this is kinder than just firing someone outright if the project they were on failed, but the thought of it makes me feel uncomfortable.
Is it more because RedHat carries itself like a consultancy than other large enterprise businesses? Is it that the possibility of being let go after a large project that you performed a relatively specialized role on feels just about right for a consultancy, but not for a business that carries themselves like a long term player? I feel like I'd expect this behavior from Pivotal for example (not implying that they'd do that).
This. Someone there could hire me onto a project that fails for some reason out of my control, and then, because I’m older, I wouldn’t get picked up by another team.
I don’t know if project-pickup retention is still how they operate; it’s several-year-old anecdotal information from a past worker there before they were acquired by IBM.