Microsoft layoffs hit software engineers hard as it leans into AI

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The layoffs that swept through Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) earlier this week hit software engineers in Washington harder than most roles.

The Redmond-based tech giant will cut about 817 software engineers, making up about 40% of affected employees, according to a state document obtained by the Business Journal.

A total of 595 people in product and technical program management compose about 29% of the cuts. And 395 people in roles ranging from video production to financial analysis will also be eliminated, the document shows.

The company declined to comment. The layoffs on the Redmond campus will begin July 12, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification.

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2025/05/16/microsoft-layoffs-software-engineers-ai.html

[RainCaster]

1. I saw this coming many years ago

Starting 25 years ago, msft began laying off the older highest paid programmers, while replacing them with kids right out of foreign universities. Experienced programmers were brought in as temps, but seldom hired

Those kids gave us the most complex set of programming tools and an increasingly awful Windows 10. Now they are being laid off because AI will be writing the software now.

[sdfernando]

3. Ai written software

You think it’s bad now???…..just wait!

[RainCaster]

4. Shitty AI powered by illegal generators

Trained by the unimaginative and managed by the cheapest assholes on earth.

[patphil]

2. Eventually AI will replace millions of jobs.

Add robots to that and you have an immense number of permanently unemployable people.
Think about what that will do to the economy
These people are consumers. Their income fuels our economy, and millions of other consumers work at jobs that provide the goods and services that these former employees needed to make their lives livable. So, more millions lose their jobs because of lack of a market for what their companies provide. Eventually this ripples out to encompass the entire nation, with permanent unemployment as the national norm.
Without money, our consumer based economy fails. Nearly everything we now take for granted would either cease to exist, or be financially out of reach.
It's impossible to maintain an economy that's supported by AI and robots, unless you completely restructure society.
We'd be living in a post-consumerism society; essentially a national welfare state.
Except for the rich, everyone's expectation would be drastically lowered.
For this to work, we would need a government that truly cared for its people. We don't have that now, and there's not much chance of that ever happening.