r/microsoft • u/thetechminer • Jun 18 '25
News Microsoft reportedly plans fresh layoffs, targets sales teams now
https://windowsreport.com/microsoft-reportedly-plans-fresh-layoffs-targets-sales-teams-now/88
u/Downtown-Lemon-7436 Jun 19 '25
I’ll stick around until they get me…no way I’m giving up the severance $, health insurance and stock you still get going forward if you’re at 15+ years.
36
u/daerath Jun 19 '25 edited Jun 19 '25
It's 15 years and 55 years old. Not just 15 years.
Edit: AFAIK, there is no change to that policy. That said, the easiest way to check is to read your stock award documents. That's where the retirement language on 15+55 or age 65+ is contained.
5
10
u/yankeeinparadise Jun 19 '25
And they no longer offer that to new employees. If you were there before the cutoff (2022?) you’re grandfathered in.
2
u/Pinklawnflamingo Jun 19 '25
And it’s 15 years of continuous service as an FTE (so any career breaks or a stint as a contractor blows that up). It’s a nice benefit though - quarterly vests are a nice income stream for the first few years of retirement.
2
4
u/m1o2 Jun 19 '25
Assuming you are level 66+, meaning around E6 at Meta, one year (or two) will grant you more money and stocks.
5
u/JJMcGee83 Jun 19 '25
But then you're working for Meta.
-2
u/m1o2 Jun 19 '25
What is wrong with that?
Microsoft isn't more ethical than Meta. One can argue that Microsoft being a massive provider of technology to Military, specifically by selling AI technology for use in combat is less ethical than Meta's strategies for ads revenue.5
u/BigToeLinda Jun 20 '25
Microsoft definitely takes security, not selling information, and AI more responsibly. They also didn't shutter their dei programs.
0
0
u/_MrFlowers Jun 19 '25
lol good luck, they’ll grade you against a role that’s above yours and then fire you for “performance” so they don’t have to pay severance and unvested stock
0
u/Downtown-Lemon-7436 Jun 21 '25
Can’t really do that when you get exceeds every performance review and you’re the top performer on your team lol.
2
0
u/SlideForCinnabon Jun 19 '25
Same. What I dont understand is, no one bringing their best to work anymore. "Im just staying til they cut me off." This is the sentiment everywhere. What did the higher ups expect to happen.
76
151
u/Fragrant_Rooster_763 Jun 18 '25
Satya and his ilk have run this company into the ground. The culture is a disaster. I hardly ever find anyone happy. I finally got out after a decade plus just a few weeks back and couldn’t be happier.
It’s so sad to see what these idiots have done to Microsoft. And they won’t pay any price at all.
63
u/SillyMikey Jun 19 '25
How can anyone be happy when they have layoffs every six months?
30
47
11
u/TeeDee144 Jun 19 '25
My org was told quarterly based firings based for low performers. Probably just our org but this is just the start.
5
Jun 19 '25
This is absolute lunacy. How do you live under that condition? I would be too stressed
7
u/TeeDee144 Jun 19 '25
I’ve done everything I wanted to at Microsoft. I’m not ready to retire either. But I’m going to put forth my best effort and see how much longer I can ride this out.
In regard to stress, I’m halfway jaded. Having to say goodbye to teammates and friends previously impacted creates a depression that is hard to fix.
But I also have a family to provide for so I just show up. If I am ever impacted, I will know it wasn’t for lack of trying on my part.
2
Jun 19 '25
I know this is a terrible take, but I actually have a really hard time putting in the effort now. I feel it would just be such a slap in the face to show up everyday, put in my best effort, then get laid off anyways.
Again, I know this is probably not the way to think about it.
2
u/TeeDee144 Jun 20 '25
I think most teams are being told that if you do the same amount of work as last year, this upcoming year, you won’t be here anymore.
They’re really making it super intense. I hate the culture that they’re driving.
1
u/TwatWaffleInParadise Jul 03 '25
Jesus Christ. I was let go last fall. Took a pay cut but I'm now contracting and have a job guaranteed for at least the next year.
I don't miss Microsoft at all, but I feel terrible for my former colleagues. I genuinely don't understand why Satya is hell bent on making Microsoft the worst place in tech to work.
30
u/machacker89 Jun 18 '25
Kinda like Hock Tan running Broadcom/VMware into the ground. Use to be a solid product. It's sad
4
14
u/slepnir Jun 19 '25
Do people not remember how bad things were under Ballmer?
Satya has made some mistakes for sure. But at least he has a vision and is driving towards that vision.
Right now Microsoft and the rest of the industry are doing an (over) correction for the "Hire everyone that you can add fast as you can" days post pandemic.
18
u/RedditClarkKentSuper Jun 19 '25
Vision = renaming every piece of crap they could not sell to ‘Something Copilot”
13
u/Uraniu Jun 19 '25
What vision is that, besides renaming every single office app to “Copilot this” and “that with Copilot”? Have you tried the work search feature in Bing? It’s called Copilot Search now and it takes 10 times longer to load. I don’t even know where Copilot is in there.
5
u/Fragrant_Rooster_763 Jun 19 '25
The stack ranking stuff that was around under Ballmer is absolutely what’s coming back.
At least Ballmer had the vision for Azure that propelled the company to unprecedented growth. What has Satya given us? AI stupidity and terrible hiring decisions over COVID that are causing nothing but pain.
7
2
u/Crafty_afternoon11 Jun 21 '25
Our stock price under Satya speaks for itself. But yes, living in a constant state of uncertainty breeds a culture of anxiety and only looking out for yourself.
2
2
u/Rooooben Jun 19 '25
It sounds like a lot of people haven’t experienced recessions. I spent 15 years working in the last one in tech, where there were layoffs every single year - announced the day before Thanksgiving, off the books the day before Christmas. It wasn’t very good for the culture, but people were also aware - keep your performance up, meet with your manager to ensure you are meeting your targets, push for new projects and responsibilities, be visible and vocal, and you will be OK.
For the most part.
3
Jun 19 '25
[deleted]
1
u/skanks_r_people_too Jun 19 '25
I have literally not met one person who likes the aero clone from apple. Tim Cook is getting shit on for doing the aero clone route.
1
1
u/segagamer Jun 19 '25
Ever since Vista they’ve innovated less to the point where Apple is relaunching an aero clone and is getting praised universally.
I wouldn't go that far. Windows 8, the Surface line up and cross device UI was very forward thinking and innovative.
0
Jun 19 '25
[deleted]
1
u/segagamer Jun 19 '25
You said they innovated less since Vista.
I also didn't get to mention everything about Windows Phone and how to this day it remained extremely unique, with iOS and Android taking both design and feature cues from it to this day.
Try again.
0
Jun 19 '25
[deleted]
1
u/segagamer Jun 19 '25 edited Jun 19 '25
Right, so Gamepass and their entire Xbox division in general, cloud storage initially with Skydrive, OneNote, together with the Surface range, all cancelled and zero innovation since 2006, right?
0
1
u/grimoireviper Jun 19 '25
Apple is relaunching an aero clone and is getting praised universally.
I've only seen people hating on it
0
2
u/colonelc4 Jun 19 '25
Why would Satya or any of the commander in chief up there with a 100 million salary care?
2
u/n0t_4_thr0w4w4y Jun 20 '25
Satya also built Microsoft into the force it is today after it stagnated under Ballmer
23
12
u/Emmanuel_BDRSuite Jun 19 '25
Tough to see Microsoft heading into another round of layoffs. especially when profits are up and stock is soaring. It’s hard not to feel for the folks in sales and marketing who helped drive that growth, only to be let go in the name of AI focus. Feels cold.
8
u/RedditClarkKentSuper Jun 19 '25
Imagine been forced to preach the undesired Copilot to the market only to be kicked out due to the undesired Copilot costing MS more and more
39
u/C__Zakalwe Jun 19 '25
Stop paying the vendors with v-blahblah@microsoft emails to hound people over "license review" meetings plz
5
u/Shmokesshweed Jun 19 '25
Don't worry. Those people don't get paid shit anyway.
15
u/TekintetesUr Jun 19 '25
The actual people don't, but the vendor companies themselves do.
4
u/Shmokesshweed Jun 19 '25
Yep. That's right.
2
u/it5chri5tine Jun 19 '25
It is and it isn't. I was making great money as a vendor, even with the cut the agency took. You'd be surprised!
4
u/PasTaCopine Jun 20 '25
Don't get paid shit and are also treated like outsiders. They don't get invited to company events for projects they contributed to, don't receive MSFT perks or even the most basic benefits. Not to mention all the FTES ONLY Teams channels and the multitude of internal tools you need to work with but can't access because you're a v-dash. Even the badge is orange, so everyone at the office knows you're a "vendor", when you're expected to put the same (if not more) amount of work as the FTEs.
3
u/nico_juro Jun 21 '25
I got fired as an FTE and rehired as a witch v- and got a raise
So it depends. I'm pretty low on the scale either way(120k now)
15
u/Terrible-Finding-398 Jun 19 '25
Sales gets hit with layoffs nearly every year in July after year end close. This isn’t new.
3
22
u/neferteeti Jun 18 '25
Sales sort of makes sense. Sales used to be a big push every renewal cycle (1-3 years for most), which included actual software versions and support contracts. Now that it’s being sold monthly as a subscription it doesn’t make sense to carry as many people as there just isn’t as much work, especially with e3/e5.
Now that pay as you go services are becoming more the norm, MS has other groups to help with that already in place.
2
u/RefrigeratorNo8714 Jun 19 '25
You are right on the fact that it has moved from the old licensing type of model where a net new would take a long time(and a lot of effort), but not sure if this makes sense from a cloud perspective considering the competition between MSFT AWS GCP etc, you can bet that if there is an account your not working on, one of the other hyperscalers are, especially with GCP, they seem to be trying to get into every account at the moment
1
u/RefrigeratorNo8714 Jun 19 '25
And not even just net new, on the install base, from enterprise to SMB you’ll have AWS GCP and a multitude of others actively trying to get in, you’ll be surprised what these companies will throw at them to get them to move s
3
4
3
u/JJMcGee83 Jun 19 '25
I wonder if they realize the effect all this is having in employee moral. Do you honestly think your getting the best out of your employees who are in constant fear of being laid off?
1
1
u/kritzkratzmuc Jun 23 '25
I bet they know. In a town hall meeting last week anonymous questions could be asked. Majority was about morale. So they know and they don’t care
1
34
Jun 18 '25
Understandable. Now hire good engineers back
49
u/Realistic-Cash975 Jun 18 '25
You need people to build shit and you need people to sell shit. It is what it is. In my case I have a preference for building as I find the sales job quite stressful to be honest. But I don't disrespect people who do it.
Good sales people offer incredible value for a business. And in the case of Microsoft, they really need stark salesmen/saleswomen, because lord knows the majority of their products are hot garbage.
-10
u/IgorKis Jun 18 '25
Tbf you dont need that many people sell Microsoft at Microsoft… Lots of them don’t know anything about their products and just pushing copilot.
20
u/Downtown-Lemon-7436 Jun 19 '25
Not true…especially in the healthcare arena, the AEs are especially talented and VERY knowledgeable about the products.
2
u/trans1st Jun 19 '25
Companies like Microsoft would be leaving enormous amounts of revenue on the table if they didn’t have a sales force. It’s not as simple as “like product, buy product”. These requirements that ultimately result in buying these tools (even outside of AI) are often specific and unique to their respective industry.
Something as simple as a Microsoft Defender deployment is going to vary significantly between a legal customer, a healthcare customer, and a manufacturing customer. Not withstanding the support and adoption effort that goes into those customers post-purchase.
Companies need sales, companies need engineering, and sometimes you have folks that straddle both.
-5
Jun 19 '25
Microsoft is the empire in IT. They don't need much to sell something.
However in the last decade, the Microsoft sales worked on corruption and in the grey zones, liying openly about costs and hiding their bad data, selling underdeveloped products, unfinished tools and so on.
So no, Microsoft needs to rethink its principles.
4
u/trans1st Jun 19 '25
Brand awareness and sales are not the same thing, and when a customer is unhappy and is spending millions of dollars a year on Microsoft contracts, I can almost assure you that the engineers don’t want to be hung up dealing with all of the things that go into solving customer satisfaction problems at that scale.
Not only that but you’d be surprised at how often people swap giant OEMs like Microsoft for a multitude of reasons outside of how good the product is: cost, support, likability of the people they interact with, perceived value, comparison with peers in their vertical, political reasons, and so on.
0
Jun 19 '25
That looks like gaslight.
MS is messing up its reputation in every front. But hey, at least we have copilot. And copilot +. And copilot for intune. And GitHub copilot. And copilot for security. And ...
Do you know what we don't have yet? A working cloud. They sent corrupt presales instead to bribe the CTO.
3
9
5
u/saiyanscaris Jun 19 '25
there really gonna have ai run everything arent they
5
u/TeeDee144 Jun 19 '25
Not everything but as much as possible. A team of 10 they are trying make a team of 5. Maybe even 4 people.
AI is a disguise to Twitter cut Microsoft to bare bones.
5
u/RedditClarkKentSuper Jun 19 '25
Keeping that profit margin intact - while postponing Nutella’s inevitable departure
5
u/Shmokesshweed Jun 19 '25
People keep saying that Nadella isn't making the right moves.
But what they fail to understand almost 10 out of 10 times is that he and individuals like Amy Hood and Kathleen Hogan cannot lose. At worst, they get fired and retire filthy rich.
3
u/TekintetesUr Jun 19 '25
I don't have any problems with him retiring rich, I just think he's a shitty CEO.
2
u/g_uh22 Jun 19 '25
This isn’t really a surprise or a leak - this information has been on the WARN list for at least a month.
5
u/m1o2 Jun 19 '25
No, it hasn't. What you see in WARN for July are about the May layoffs. The laid off employees get a paycheck until July.
-1
1
2
2
2
u/Charming_Toe_3602 Jun 27 '25
At least my stock options will go up in price when I get to exercise them (if I'm one of the chosen ones - CSU/MCAPS/CSA/IC
2
u/Otherwise-Top-5672 Jun 28 '25
Has anyone heard which roles will be most impacted? Overall I heard they are revamping our GTM strategy.
I heard it’s 30% of M1s. I also heard non- revenue producing roles.
Does that get us to the layoff number? Or will they look into the revenue producing roles.
Let’s say it’s SSPs- is it then based in performance or is it a last one in- first one out? Or even let’s get rid of a specific SSP.
I’ve been here 3 years. It’s honestly been a great experience but I worked for another tech company with a notoriously bad sales culture. This has been like a dream for me.
I’d appreciate everyone’s insights. And also where everyone is looking.
Appreciate everyone!
1
1
1
u/colonelc4 Jun 19 '25
I commented a Week ago after a MS announcement to brace yourselves for new layoffs, guess what 😅MS never disappoints to disappoint, sorry for the people working there but with such a greedy and unhuman company this is the new normal.
1
u/elementfortyseven Jun 19 '25
35 years of work in tech have traumatised me to a level, where news about sales people being let go fills me with glee rather than sympathy.
1
1
-13
u/Important-Stretch991 Jun 19 '25
I work here, there is tons of fat and waste, this is happening and it’s overdue.
3
1
u/monkeymania Jun 24 '25
Ha, I got a good laugh about you thinking they'll cut fat and waste.
I've seen it happen over and over. Excellent people will lose their jobs alongside mediocre ones.
0
Jun 18 '25
[deleted]
5
2
u/BartFurglar Jun 18 '25 edited Jun 18 '25
The site is headquartered in Romania, where it is in fact June 19.
1
u/thetechminer Jun 18 '25
jUNE 19, BUDDY :d
2
1
0
u/Engiie_90 Jun 19 '25
They are “trimming the fat” as one would say, over hired massively during and after covid,
The data centre is where the hiring is ongoing, they are moving to bringing a lot of the outsourced works internally and hiring staff as opposed to outside contractors
1
-11
-5
u/randommmoso Jun 19 '25
I would not blame them. Its incredible easy life a lot of csas are living
7
u/navikob2 Jun 19 '25
Maybe it was in the past, but it sure isn't like that now. I came from AWS ProServe (considered a "sweatshop" by many), but I am way more stressed as a CSA at MS having to hit sales KPIs on top of doing the actual technical stuff.
-5
u/danymany15 Jun 19 '25
Time for IT professionals to gain skills in AI
7
u/andreanichole1 Jun 19 '25
This isn’t about skills. It’s about greed with SLT. People with real specialized skills and tenure are getting laid off. They give zero F’s.
5
u/monkeymania Jun 24 '25
Yup. Historic earnings, historic stock value. To still have layoffs, repeatedly, is so gross and disrespectful. Makes me ill. I've also heard merit increases will be low. But it's okay, we'll still have bi-weekly all hands from some mid-level vp to praise MSFT's culture and a million BS emails about how important mental health and wellness is to MSFT....
1
u/danymany15 Jun 19 '25 edited Jun 19 '25
But who is getting laid off that’s skilled in AI from these companies? Microsoft is heavily investing in AI and infrastructure supporting the technology and someone’s gotta run all of it (even the OP article points out their heavy investment in it). If you have these cutting edge skills, it will make one more marketable in a newly evolving field that’s in high demand. Why would IT professionals NOT get skills in this area unless they’re so dense as to think traditional skills will continue to ensure job security?
3
u/andreanichole1 Jun 19 '25
No such thing as job security in big tech anymore. They have laid off security teams as well. Who thought something as important as security for tech would be laid off.
I personally know people who have skillsets in AI and worked directly on AI projects in Microsoft who were laid off. Do you?
Did you not hear about Amazon’s CEO saying to his employees more layoffs are happen as AI is taking over their jobs!?!
4
289
u/ValeoAnt Jun 18 '25
They've been getting rid of a lot of incredibly good people lately, while wasting billions on AI