Tesco is hiring for a Head of Software Engineering to lead its “migration from VMware to Proxmox”, a job advert from the retail giant reveals.
According to reports this summer, Tesco is migrating 40,000 server workloads entirely off VMware infrastructure by the end of 2027.
This follows a spat with parent Broadcom over price hikes brought in after it acquired VMware for $69bn in 2024.
According to the advert, Tesco’s new Head of Software Engineering: Edge Platform will be tasked with “modernising Tesco’s edge virtualisation estate through the migration from VMware to Proxmox”, among other things.
The ad was flagged up on Friday morning by David Furby, CEO of Portsmouth-based IT provider Novatech, which last week announced it has become the UK’s first certified training partner of free, open-source server management and virtualisation platform Proxmox.
Based in Bengaluru, India, the role is open for applications until 31 October.
“If you’re still in the mindset that Proxmox is not really suitable for enterprise, Tesco clearly thinks differently,” Furby wrote.
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, Furby confirmed this is the first time he’d seen anything in writing about Proxmox’s involvement with Tesco.
“It was a bit of a secret as to who they were using, and the cat’s out the bag,” he said.
“But am I surprised? Not entirely, because Proxmox is a superb product. We’re pushing it very hard, and are getting some great traction from it from some surprisingly big people.”
Rob Smith, Managing Director of Newbury-based MSP Techzura, said the job description’s wording suggests Tesco “isn’t buying a migration from anyone, and is instead building its own platform on open source with its own offshore engineers”.
“Read the job ad carefully. This is store and depot servers, exactly where Broadcom’s bundling and core minimums make VMware indefensible, and it’s a software engineering role based in Bengaluru,” he told IT Channel Oxygen.
“It confirms Proxmox at the edge, not the data centre, but if thousands of store sites run cleanly on it, that’s the biggest proof of concept Proxmox could ask for. I wouldn’t rule out the rest of the estate following.”
The nature of the deal is also a warning for the channel, Smith claimed.
“When a customer this size walks away from VMware, the spend doesn’t move to another vendor’s partners, it leaves the channel altogether,” he said.
Scott Mann, SVP Global Sales at StorMagic, told IT Channel Oxygen: “This is a signal to everyone that customers of all sizes, including enterprises, will consider the right platform for their workloads, not just the ‘usual suspects’. It’s good to see Tesco are thinking differently at the edge, where the requirements are so vastly different to the datacentre.”
IT Channel Oxygen approached Tesco for comment on Friday morning, has yet to hear back, and will update accordingly.
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
