Software Engineers at Microsoft may as well be interchangeable. I was working there when they laid off 18,000 people. Everyone I knew personally who lost their

Software Engineers at Microsoft may as well be interchangeable. I was working there when they laid off 18,000 people. Everyone I knew personally who lost their job was rehired by the company within three months. One of them was even rehired to their original team, go figure. I saw good performers laid off while poor performers kept their jobs. I also saw poor performers rehired. The rumor at the time was that the list of people being laid off was chosen at random. That certainly makes sense, as it would allow the company to say, "We randomly laid off X% of people doing Y work in Z division." in the event of any discrimination or wrongful termination lawsuits. Companies of this size treat people as cogs in a machine. Provided all your cogs meet a certain minimum standard your machine functions well. If you need to cut down on the number of moving parts, you don't get too concerned over which individual cogs you get rid of. It's horrible and impersonal, but I guess it's somewhat necessary for a company like Microsoft.