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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Some Microsoft organizations are looking to increase their span of control, defined as the number of direct reports or subordinates a manager or supervisor oversees. It also wants to increase the number of coders compared to non-coders on projects,
According to anonymous people familiar with the matter who spoke to Business Insider, Microsoft has yet to decide how many jobs will be cut, though one person said it could be a significant portion of their team.
Other companies such as Amazon and Google are also reducing the number of managers and executives in their drive for efficiency.
Microsoft wants to decrease the ratio of product/program managers (PMs) to engineers. Microsoft security boss Charlie Bell's division has a ratio of around 5.5 engineers to one PM, but he wants that to reach 10:1.
News that Microsoft is targeting non-coders in these cuts is in contrast to the many stories about generative AI replacing the need for programmers. Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott made the startling prediction last week that 95% of all code will be generated by AI by 2030. He added that humans would still be involved in the process, though it's easy to imagine that there will be fewer of them.
At the start of the year, Microsoft confirmed it was implementing performance-based layoffs, though it said those let go would be replaced with new hires. Microsoft rates employees on a scale of 0 to 200 and bases their stock awards and bonuses on this rating. Anyone in the 60 to 80 range – 100 is average – is rated as a low performer.
Soon after those performance cuts were revealed, the company said it was making more job cuts across its business, impacting employees in the gaming, experience & devices, sales, and security divisions.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday April 14, @05:17PM
My experience is that the internal fights really start happening sometime between when the survival of the business is no longer in doubt and when the business has grown to its likely maximum. After that point, the executives know that internal power is more likely to lead to raises and promotions than improving the state of the business by, say, increasing sales or decreasing costs.
However, that doesn't always allow smaller players to move in successfully. The big boys have a lot of advantages that make them hard to dislodge, not the least of which is the fact that they likely own a few pet politicians, have an army of lawyers, and generally have a much better chance of bending the political system to satisfy the whims of their business model rather than having to do things the other way around like they're supposed to.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin