4 ms·

Sad to see Microsoft seeming to fall into this pattern of a recurring trickle of layoffs, especially when they are still so profitable. These kinds of layoffs c

Sad to see Microsoft seeming to fall into this pattern of a recurring trickle of layoffs, especially when they are still so profitable. These kinds of layoffs can be incredibly corrosive to morale. The 'update skills in various units' argument rings a little hollow at a company where a new hire on an eng team in an org with lots of legacy systems, like Windows or Office, will be expected to need 6+ months to be fully integrated in the team. If that were true, why not just retrain the people you already have?

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
> The 'update skills in various units' argument rings a little hollow at a company where a new hire on an eng team in an org with lots of legacy systems, like Windows or Office, will be expected to need 6+ months to be fully integrated in the team. If that were true, why not just retrain the people you already have? I didn't see where it said who they were laying off. What if they were laying off hardware engineers? If they haven't done software before that ramp up time to integrate into a software development team may be years. They do a lot more than just software. I agree if they're laying off of software then there is no reason they can't be retrained in another dev team but that's not always the case here. You're also missing the part where Microsoft gives them 60 days to find a new position within the company. I'm assuming they have to re-interview but probably no way to avoid that.
- ac29 10y ago
  >I didn't see where it said who they were laying off "The upcoming cuts won't be specific to any single group, but will be spread across the company's worldwide offices and business units, including sales, marketing, human resources, engineering, finance and more." Sounds like perhaps they dont expect to make their quarterly numbers, and are doing blanket layoffs to appease investors.
  - BinaryIdiot 10y ago
    > "The upcoming cuts won't be specific to any single group, but will be spread across the company's worldwide offices and business units, including sales, marketing, human resources, engineering, finance and more." I was referring to the type of people, mostly. Like, software engineers, hardware engineers, designers, HR folks, etc. > Sounds like perhaps they dont expect to make their quarterly numbers, and are doing blanket layoffs to appease investors. They announced these over 6 months ago so I'm not necessarily convinced that's why. Though I would love to know for sure.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

> The 'update skills in various units' argument rings a little hollow at a company where a new hire on an eng team in an org with lots of legacy systems, like Windows or Office, will be expected to need 6+ months to be fully integrated in the team. If that were true, why not just retrain the people you already have? I didn't see where it said who they were laying off. What if they were laying off hardware engineers? If they haven't done software before that ramp up time to integrate into a software development team may be years. They do a lot more than just software. I agree if they're laying off of software then there is no reason they can't be retrained in another dev team but that's not always the case here. You're also missing the part where Microsoft gives them 60 days to find a new position within the company. I'm assuming they have to re-interview but probably no way to avoid that.

ac29 10y ago
>I didn't see where it said who they were laying off "The upcoming cuts won't be specific to any single group, but will be spread across the company's worldwide offices and business units, including sales, marketing, human resources, engineering, finance and more." Sounds like perhaps they dont expect to make their quarterly numbers, and are doing blanket layoffs to appease investors.
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  > "The upcoming cuts won't be specific to any single group, but will be spread across the company's worldwide offices and business units, including sales, marketing, human resources, engineering, finance and more." I was referring to the type of people, mostly. Like, software engineers, hardware engineers, designers, HR folks, etc. > Sounds like perhaps they dont expect to make their quarterly numbers, and are doing blanket layoffs to appease investors. They announced these over 6 months ago so I'm not necessarily convinced that's why. Though I would love to know for sure.