Microsoft has traditionally been a very safe employer, who typically does a very good job of maintaining revenue per employee. Of course Microsoft also histori

Microsoft has traditionally been a very safe employer, who typically does a very good job of maintaining revenue per employee. Of course Microsoft also historically benefitted from housing in the surrounding area being 1/2 to 1/3rd what it was in the bay area, so they could pay a lot less. Now that good family housing around MS campus starts at 1.5m, MS has been forced to increase salaries dramatically. > Selling your house and moving for a job in a clearly ridiculous job market is going all in on a gamble. Tech hiring had been crazy for years before the pandemic, IMHO pandemic hiring in tech didn't stand out as being particularly odd. Of course looking at the numbers afterwards, we can see how much companies grew, but no one applying for a job in Jan 2021 knew that Microsoft intended to hire 40K people that year.