Thousands of Microsoft workers have been laid off in the past year, and Washington resident Mike Kostersitz is just one of them. After spending 31 years at Microsoft, he’s now looking for a job for the first time in more than three decades.

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In May, the 60-year-old principal product manager lead said a new high-priority meeting appeared on his calendar out of nowhere.

“Me and 120 other anonymous faces got told our jobs had been eliminated,” he told Business Insider (1). The layoff came as a complete surprise. “After 31 years, you would expect at least your manager or your VP or somebody to come to you and say, ‘Hey Mike, this is going to happen and here is why.’”

A few years ago Kostersitz presented an ‘architectural deep dive” in a YouTube video and introduced himself as a PM lead on the Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI (AKS-HCI) team (2).

Kostersitz is among thousands of tech workers suddenly forced to navigate an unfamiliar job market reshaped by automation, AI and an industry-wide slowdown.

The good news is that he recently shared on LinkedIn that “something exciting is brewing” and he is feeling “grateful, fired up and ready to lace up for what’s ahead.”

Microsoft’s layoffs are part of a larger trend. In recent months, Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet have all trimmed their workforces. Amazon cut 14,000 jobs in October, citing a shift toward AI automation. Meta eliminated roughly 600 roles in its “superintelligence” division, while Alphabet reduced staff in its cloud unit.

According to executive outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, cost-cutting and AI were the top reasons employers cited for job reductions in October (3). The so-called "DOGE impact" is the leading reason cited for layoffs in 2025 overall.

The tech industry announced 33,281 job cuts in October 2025 — a sharp jump from 5,639 in September, and the highest number recorded across any private sector that month. For all of 2025, tech firms have announced 141,159 job cuts, up 17% from the same period in 2024.

While overall U.S. unemployment remains relatively low, it has risen since the start of the year. It would appear competition for tech roles has intensified. Reports suggest thousands of skilled professionals are now competing for fewer openings, often requiring updated skill sets in AI, data science and automation.