They got laid off from the Microsoft country club and dumped into a hellish job market

• Thousands of Microsoft workers have been laid off in the past year.
• Some said any sense of job security they once had was shattered.
• Across corporate America, laid-off workers are grappling with how to protect their careers and finances.

After 31 years at Microsoft, Mike Kostersitz never saw it coming.

In May, his team met with a senior leader about a new product.

“Everybody was happy with the progress,” said Kostersitz, then a principal product manager lead working on Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure. “Everything was peachy.”

The following morning, he noticed a high-priority virtual meeting had been added to his calendar — and it wasn’t good news.

“Me and 120 other anonymous faces got told our jobs had been eliminated,” said the Washington-based 60-year-old. His manager and two of his direct reports were also among the 6,000 employees affected. In July, roughly 9,000 more were laid off. Previously, in January and February, Microsoft had made nearly 2,000 performance-based cuts.

I spoke with seven of the Microsoft workers who lost their jobs over the past 12 months. Microsoft was once known for its “country club” culture, but as Ashley Stewart reported for Business Insider earlier this year, leaders worried the company had gone soft, and it ramped up scrutiny on performance.

A Microsoft spokesperson has said that most of this year’s cuts were not performance-based but were intended to reduce management layers and streamline operations. Along with Amazon, Meta, and Google, Microsoft is one of many companies — from Silicon Valley to corporate America — that are fueling the Great Flattening.

The tenure of the ex-Microsofters I spoke to ranged from a few years to more than three decades. Some said any sense of job security they once had was shattered. Several said they were caught off guard by their layoffs, citing factors like long tenure, no documented performance issues, and Microsoft’s position as the world’s third-most valuable company. They wondered: If job security is dead at Microsoft, will they find it anywhere else?

Kostersitz is one of them. To help with his job search, he said a Microsoft-funded career advisor recommended he “de-age” his résumé by erasing work done in the 1980s and ’90s. His LinkedIn profile now only shows professional experience since 2003. The advisor also emphasized that today’s job market is an endurance test.

“They said it’s a game of chicken right now,” he said. “The person who has the longer breath and can stick it out longer will get the job.”

The changing nature of job security — and job hunting

The experiences of laid-off Microsoft employees are part of a broader shift in corporate America. As Business Insider’s Aki Ito has reported, job security was a defining feature of white-collar work during the postwar boom, a period when layoffs and firings were rare. However, globalization — and the overseas competition that accompanied it — gave rise to a new management philosophy focused on cost-cutting, downsizing, and viewing employees as interchangeable.

It’s not just about flattening. In cuts this year, companies have cited AI — if not directly for taking jobs, then for creating an environment in which companies can operate with leaner staff. It’s what workers have been fearing will happen on a large scale as AI continues to improve and become increasingly omnipresent.

While Microsoft’s culture has evolved over the years, some laid-off employees said they believe the recent cuts show the company has entered a new era — one where avoiding layoffs appears to be a lower priority.

The former Microsoft employees, in addition to dozens of other laid-off workers I’ve spoken with over the past year, told me they are grappling with how to protect their careers and financial well-being after an unexpected chop.

Before Eduardo Noriega was laid off by Microsoft in May, he’d been nervous about his job security since 2009, when the company cut about 5,000 workers.

“When I saw the layoff, I realized that job security isn’t real,” said Noriega, who’s in his 50s and lives in Seattle.

After weighing his options, Noriega concluded that his best chance at financial stability was to build a side business he could rely on if he ever lost his job.

By the time he was cut in May, he’d spent nearly a decade building a staffing firm outside work hours — and was earning more from it than from his software engineering job. He said he had been hesitant to quit Microsoft and give up the steady paycheck, but the layoff gave him the push he needed to go all in.

“I never dared to quit,” he said. “And then Microsoft presented the layoff, and for me, that was like an exit.”

For other workers across corporate America, the challenge of landing a new role in today’s economy has upped the stakes of sudden unemployment.

While layoffs across the broader economy remain low by historical standards, white-collar roles have been particularly vulnerable. At the same time, US businesses are hiring at one of the slowest rates since 2013.

“If you become unemployed, it’s become much harder to find a job,” said Laura Ulrich, director of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab. And because hiring was so much stronger in many industries just a few years ago, she said, the shift may feel especially stark.

Ian Carter began working at Microsoft in 2021, and he said the company’s layoffs in 2023 and 2024 sent a clear message: His job wasn’t safe.

“It felt like it didn’t matter if you were a great worker or not,” said the 33-year-old. “Everybody was at risk.”

Since being laid off in May from his position as a technical program manager, he has struggled to find a job. He drew on savings for several months to cover expenses and switched to a month-to-month lease on his Redmond, Washington, apartment — crossing his fingers that he’d land something soon. But he never did. In late October, he stored his belongings and moved to Florida to live with his family and save money while continuing his search.

“Rent is expensive,” he said, “but rent without income coming in is doubly expensive.”

Stability, soul-searching, and a steady income

In May, Joe Friend learned that he and 14 other members of his working group had been laid off.

Friend’s tenure at Microsoft spanned more than two decades across three stints, but this was the first time he hadn’t left by choice. Friend said he believes there’s been a culture shift within Microsoft — one that’s left employees with less job security than they once had. Some of his concerns extend beyond Microsoft to Big Tech more broadly — which is why he plans to be highly selective about his next role.

“I think I’d rather earn $50,000 a year doing something I’m excited about,” said the 62-year-old. “It doesn’t mean I won’t jump back into a job, but it certainly won’t be Big Tech.”

Deborah Hendersen took a different approach. After 14 years at Microsoft, Hendersen, a user researcher in the company’s Xbox division, was one of about 9,000 employees laid off in July.

“It wasn’t so much like watching a car wreck,” said the 45-year-old, who lives in Seattle. “It was more like you were in the car, knowing it was going to wreck.”

The moment she received a mysterious meeting invite that she suspected would bring bad news, she began laying the groundwork for her future. She shared a message internally and on LinkedIn to tell her network that she’d been laid off and to learn who else had been affected. This led to the creation of a Discord chat of more than a dozen affected colleagues, where people shared job opportunities, helped each other prepare for interviews, vented their frustrations, and celebrated their successes.

Hendersen also turned to her network to find openings and secure referrals. One of the roles recommended to her was a user experience researcher position at Meta. She received a referral and, in late August, a job offer.

Hendersen credited her network — and in particular her laid-off colleagues — for supporting her during this challenging period.

“It’s so helpful to have the support of other people who are going through it — both the highs and the lows,” she said. “Because everybody gets turned down, gets their hopes up, and is just figuring out how to remain sane in a really challenging time.”