When Satya Nadella became the CEO of microsoft, it was believed he will be different. He himself told in interviews about the importance of empathy. Where has the empathy suddenly disappeared?
https://deepseeks.medium.com/how-are-microsofts-january-2025-layoffs-different-for-the-worst-aa454f061315
Why is Microsoft behaving like service based companies who do not value their employees. It has labelled many good employees as low performers and then fired. How will this affect their careers?
https://www.financialexpress.com/life/technology-tech-layoffs-microsoft-cuts-15000-jobs-in-2025-pushes-remaining-staff-to-embrace-ai-3911172/
Videos
I saw a rumor online that layoffs were starting May 12th for middle managers and May 13th for ICs. Anyone have any insight?
Update: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/13/microsoft-is-cutting-3percent-of-workers-across-the-software-company.html
So sorry to those impacted today. I was hoping these rumors weren’t true.
In 2023, Microsoft’s Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela made a notable statement on the company’s internal Yammer platform: “The most important lever for almost all our employees’ compensation upside is the stock price.” Below article looks into it.
Why Working at Microsoft May No Longer Be Worth It (2025)
This philosophy tied employees’ financial futures directly to Microsoft’s stock performance.
With negative one year returns, layoffs without severance is it worth to stay at microsoft.
News Article: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-layoffs-hit-security-devices-sales-gaming-2025-1
Seems to be not performance based. Meta is doing it too. Are we doing a re-run of 2023?
Microsoft is laying off employees across organizations including security, experiences and devices, sales, and gaming, according to two people familiar with the matter. A Microsoft spokesperson said the layoffs are small but did not specify a figure and unrelated to the job cuts Business Insider recently reported targeting underperforming employees across the company. One of the people familiar with the matter said employees started receiving notifications Tuesday about layoffs in Microsoft's security unit. The group is run by Charlie Bell, a former top cloud executive at Amazon, who stunned the industry when he left for Microsoft in 2021 to lead arevamped cybersecurity effort. Microsoft expanded its Secure Future Initiative last year, making security the top priority for every employee. The change followed years of security issues at Microsoft, including what the Department of Homeland Security called "a cascade of security failures" that allowed Chinese hackers to access emails from thousands of customers. The company also made security a core priority on which employees are evaluated during performance reviews. "If you're faced with the tradeoff between security and another priority, your answer is clear: Do security." Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote in an email to Microsoft employees last year.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/microsoft-layoffs-9000-workers/
I was laid off from Microsoft in May 2025 with my employment officially ending in July 2025. My severance clearly stated that I’m eligible for rehire.
However, it seems the FY’25 Rewards were published recently (managers finalize them by June 30), and my entry shows 0 rewards, likely because I was no longer part of the rewards cycle after being laid off. Now, a recruiter told me that because of this “0 Rewards” entry, I’m showing up as not eligible for rehire, and they had to revoke my verbal offer.
I’m trying to understand if this is a system or HR error, since:
I had 100% rewards in FY’24,
My severance letter explicitly says I’m eligible for rehire, and
My termination was due to RIF, not performance.
EDIT: I’ve already opened a ticket with HR Assist and reached out to my former manager (no response yet).Any advice on what else I can do to escalate or fix this?
UPDATE: HR Assist confirmed that I’m eligible for rehire and for FY’25 rewards. They also corrected the eligibility status on my profile (I received a screenshot). The recruiter verified that they can now see my eligibility but said the offer had already expired.
However, they still haven’t provided any details on how my status was changed or who updated it, despite my repeated requests and citing my right to full disclosure of all records related to my employment.
Does anyone has any recommendations for employment lawyers?
Too much hiring during Covid
overspending on purchasing game studios
investing into AI infrastructure with nothing in return
reducing American workers, hiring offshore workers
moving from personal growth model to make profit fast model
Microsoft leadership has lost focus
I need help understanding this article on Inc.
https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/microsofts-xbox-ceo-just-explained-why-the-company-is-laying-off-9000-people-its-not-great/91209841
Between May and now Microsoft laid off 15,000 employees, stating, mainly, that the focus now is on AI. Some skeptics I’ve been talking to are telling me that this is just an excuse, that the layoffs are simply Microsoft hiding other reasons behind “AI First”. Can this be true? Can Microsoft be, say, having revenue/financial problems and is trying to disguise those behind the “AI First” discourse?
Are they outsourcing heavily? Or is it true that AI is taking over those 15,000 jobs? The Xbox business must demand a lot and a lot of programming (as must also be the case with most of Microsoft businesses. Are those programming and software design/engineering jobs being taken over by AI?
What I can’t fathom is the possibility that there were 15,000 redundant jobs at the company and that they are now directing the money for those paychecks to pay for AI infrastructure and won’t feel the loss of thee productivity those 15,00 jobs brought to the table unless someone (or something) else is doing it.
Any Microsoft people here can explain, please?
Microsoft on Tuesday said that it’s laying off 3% of employees across all levels and geographies.
“We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.
The company reported better-than-expected results and an upbeat quarterly forecast in late April.
Microsoft had 228,000 employees at the end of June, meaning that the move will affect thousands of employees.
It’s likely Microsoft’s largest round of layoffs since the elimination of 10,000 roles in 2023. In January the company announced a small round of layoffs that were performance-based. These new job cuts are not related to performance, the spokesperson said.
One objective is to reduce layers of management, the spokesperson said.
On Monday, Microsoft shares stopped trading at $449.26, the highest price so far this year. They closed at a record $467.56 last July.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/13/microsoft-is-cutting-3percent-of-workers-across-the-software-company.html
That’s a big number of corp jobs - that the Mag 7 theme this earnings season?
Amazon may lay off 30,000 corporate employees this week, Reuters reports
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-to-reportedly-may-lay-off-30000-corporate-employees-this-week/
9000 employees have been laid off across Microsoft
4th major mass lay offs at Xbox in 18 months
The Initiative closed, Perfect Dark cancelled
Rare hit with layoffs, Everwild cancelled, Banjo Kazooie and Sea of Thieves Director leaves Rare
50% of Turn 10 laid off
King and Zenimax hit with lay offs, new Zenmiax online IP cancelled
Multiple call of Duty Studios hit with lay offs
50% of Xbox user research team laid off, head of child and family saftey laid off
FIRING…even Satya’s DP might need this banner now.
Microsoft just cut about 6,000 roles
roughly 3 % of the company (May 13)
reason? fewer managers, more builders.
the goal is to pump cash and head-count straight into AI.
what it means for us:
– margins > headcount
– titles fade, skills don’t
– layoffs ≠ failure.
sometimes life just says: reboot.today’s banner: FIRINGtomorrow: EXIT MODEsoon: REBOOTING
I was in M365 Core working on the Copilot Data Platform team which basically is the infrastructure that Copilot runs and gets its data trained from.
I started in 2022 before Copilot or even ChatGPT were even a thing really and the company I started at vs the one that I ended with is like two completely different entities.
Before 2024, the growth chart for a SWE at the company was a lot more holisitic, focusing on growing through people skills, technical understanding and having my manager help me get to the next level. I managed to get to an L60 which is one off from SWE II, but right after I promoted the company shifted into this AI-driven mindset where the growth chart changed to start emphasizing performance metrics and throughput. The problem for me was that it was hard for me to find ways to actually improve these metrics because of our team was heavily DevOps focused with only a few people on my team working on features that could actually generate meaningful performance metrics.
Every single 1:1 my manager was asking me how much I was using the AI tools we have at our disposal, how many PRs I was completing a week, how many PR reviews I was doing a week, and pushing me to do talks on my experiences using AI as a developer. My manager even acknowledged that a recurring complaint from our team was the amount that we don’t get to code stuff compared to DevOps related work which cannot be factored into PR metrics.
Looking back, it is crazy that once Copilot surfaced as a CLEAR cash cow for the company, they went into overdrive into this performance-based mindset.
I’m not writing this to bash on anyone or anything because I genuinely did enjoy my time there, but I’m not gonna act like Copilot/AI hasn’t shifted the company into a less holistic version of itself. The main thing I’m sad about is that I lost like $30k of stock that was part of my signing agreement and with how these financial reports are coming out that would have been so much damn money to sit on for the next 3-5 years since Microsoft is doing incredibly well from a business standpoint with no signs of slowing down.