Report: Microsoft’s GitHub To Lay Off Hundreds

Thomas Dohmke, CEO of San Francisco-based GitHub, blames the cuts on budget changes, according to Fortune.

Microsoft’s open source software repository GitHub will reportedly conduct layoffs, resulting in up to 10 percent of its staff, or hundreds of employees, let go from the subsidiary.

Thomas Dohmke, CEO of San Francisco-based GitHub, blamed the cuts on budget changes, according to Fortune. He will cut GitHub’s workforce by up to 10 percent through the end of fiscal year 2023 and take GitHub fully remote.

“I want to extend my deepest gratitude to every single Hubber and their incredible talents that have helped GitHub grow to where we are today,” Dohmke said in a message to employees, according to Fortune. “Every commit you have made and every day you have worked has helped construct GitHub into the largest and most important software development platform.”

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CRN has reached out to GitHub for comment.

Parent company Microsoft – based in Redmond, Wash. – announced layoffs of 10,000 people in January due to moderated customer demand for digital tools after heightened demand and a hiring spree at the height of the pandemic.

It was not clear if the GitHub cuts add on to Microsoft’s 10,000 layoffs or are part of the previously announced layoffs, according to Fortune.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has praised GitHub’s growth and contributions to the AI race among the biggest tech giants in recent public comments.

On Microsoft’s latest quarterly earnings call, held in January, Nadella said that the paired programmer GitHub Copilot offering is “the first at-scale AI product built for this era” and surpassed 1 million users to date. He said that GitHub overall has 100 million developer users.

In Dohmke’s message to employees Thursday, the GitHub CEO said that a hiring freeze enacted Jan. 18 remains in effect.

GitHub is also working toward closing all of its offices as leases end or when operationally possible, he said.

“We are looking at further reducing our operating costs,” Dohmke said, according to Fortune. “We will share details and transition plans with you in the coming months, but I wanted to share two decisions with you: i) Effective immediately, we will be moving laptop refreshes from three years to four years. ii) We will be moving to Microsoft Teams for the sole purpose of video conferencing, saving significant cost and simplifying cross-company and customer conversations. This move will be complete by September 1, 2023. We will remain on Slack as our day-to-day collaboration tool.”

Some of the earliest cuts at Microsoft appeared to be in its HoloLens, advertising and marketing departments.

GitHub appears to have about 2,800 employees, according to its annual diversity report, meaning as many as 280 employees could be get let go.

GitHub joins other tech vendors in shedding employees with changing customer demand, increasing inflation and concerns over a recession in the United States. Zoom, Dell Technologies, Okta, Autodesk, Splunk, Secureworks and Cyren are among the tech vendors to announce layoffs in recent days.