Microsoft Owned-GitHub Lays Off 140+ Strong India Engineering Team

Microsoft-owned GitHub has become the latest tech company to fire employees, with the open source developer platform laying off its entire engineering team in India.

As per reports, over 140 employees were affected by the layoffs, which were not based on performance. The impacted employees were offered two months’ pay as severance package. Besides, they were made to sign a strict non-disclosure agreement.

In a statement, a GitHub spokesperson confirmed the development with Inc42. “As part of the reorganisation plan shared in February, workforce reductions were made today as part of difficult but necessary decisions and realignments to both protect the health of our business in the short term and grant us the capacity to invest in our long-term strategy moving forward. This is part of that previously shared plan on February 9th, please refer to that statement for more,” a GitHub spokesperson told Inc42.

In February, the Microsoft-owned company announced that it would lay off 10% of its staff and go fully remote, shutting all of its physical offices. It also announced a hiring freeze in January as part of a cost-cutting exercise.

Founded in 2008, GitHub was developed by Chris Wanstrath, PJ Hyett, Tom Preston-Werner and Scott Chacon. Microsoft acquired GitHub in 2018 for INR $7.5 Bn.

The platform announced the launch of its India-based subsidiary, GitHub India Private Limited, in 2020 to get more developers and enterprise customers from the country.

Last year, the open source software development platform also made its developer platform for startups, GitHub for Startups, available in the country. Eligible startups in India, and globally, were to receive up to 20 seats of GitHub Enterprise free for one year. Moreover, the startups were also to be provided with support and guidance from GitHub technical experts.

The layoffs come at a time when the tech industry globally has been hit hard by the global macroeconomic crisis and fears of an upcoming recession. This has also led to enterprise customers cutting down their spending.

Earlier this year, Microsoft said it would layoff 10,000 employees, or about 5% of its workforce, globally. As part of this, the tech giant laid off employees at its India Development Centres, or research and development divisions, in Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

Other global giants such as Meta, Amazon, Salesforce and IT firm Accenture have also announced layoffs over the last few months.

The slowdown has also hit the Indian startup ecosystem. As per Inc42’s layoff tracker, Indian startups, including unicorns like BYJU’S, Chargebee, Cars24, LEAD, Ola, OYO, Meesho, and MPL, have laid off over 23,000 employees so far since 2022.

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