Microsoft’s recent round of layoffs appears to have hit software developers especially hard, including several prominent Python developers and a veteran TypeScript developer. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced plans to cut 3 percent of its global workforce to nearly 7,000 employees. According to local reports, more than 40 percent of the roughly 2,000 jobs cut in Microsoft’s home state of Washington affect software engineering roles.
This follows an earlier statement from Redmond in April indicating plans to streamline management layers, with CFO Amy Hood implying middle managers would be the primary target. However, software developers have felt the brunt of this month’s layoffs. Mike Droettboom, a principal software engineering manager at Microsoft and a CPython core developer, shared the news on LinkedIn.
“It’s been a tough couple of days,” Droettboom wrote. “Microsoft’s support for the [Python] project was canceled yesterday, and my heart goes out to the majority of the team that was laid off. A hard day for me, but even harder for others.” He also noted that his team received layoff notifications while en route to the Python Language Summit at PyCon in Pittsburgh (held by invitation only on May 14th, 2025).
In addition to Droettboom, Microsoft laid off Ron Buckton, a long-time TypeScript developer.
Developers affected by Microsoft layoffs
After 18 years at Microsoft, with roughly a decade working on TypeScript, I have unfortunately been let go in the latest round of layoffs,” Buckton posted on Mastodon.
“I need to take a few days to process before I start looking for work. Thanks to everyone who’s been part of my journey so far.”
Another notable departure is Matt Podwysock, a 19-year veteran who worked on the Azure SDK and revealed he’d also been given notice.
In response to inquiries about the layoffs, Microsoft provided a boilerplate statement: “We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace.
The prominence of software developers among those let go is noteworthy, given CEO Satya Nadella’s recent claim that AI is now writing a large portion of Microsoft’s code. This perspective seems to reflect a growing sentiment among tech CEOs about the future of AI in software development. During the LlamaCon 2025 discussion, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicted that “maybe half the development is going to be done by AI as opposed to people” in the next year.
Social media speculated that AI might be responsible for Microsoft’s layoffs, but the company stated that such assumptions are misleading. The real reasons are likely more complex. For instance, Microsoft’s plan to invest approximately $80 billion in AI-enabled data centers might influence its employee salaries budget.
We contacted the laid-off employees mentioned for further comments and will update this story if new information becomes available.
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