Microsoft-owned internet hosting service provider GitHub has eliminated 142 engineering roles across its India operations, people aware of the matter told Business Today.
"A total of 142 engineers were let go at GitHub India yesterday (Monday). Laid-off employees have been given two months' pay as severance," a source said.
Another source claimed that this layoff round was not based on the performance of employees. He said, "Whole engineering team was asked to leave. Hundreds of engineers have been impacted. It was not performance related.”
The laid-off employees have been made to sign a strict Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) in lieu of the severance benefits, the source added.
GitHub confirmed this development and told Business Today in a statement, "As part of the reorganization 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."
Last month, the Microsoft-owned company announced it would eliminate 10 per cent of its workforce to cut costs. GitHub reportedly has a little over 3,000 employees globally.
The internet hosting service provider also said in February that it would freeze hirings until further notice.
GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke had sent an email to employees justifying the measures. The email read, “We are announcing a number of difficult decisions, including saying goodbye to some Hubbers and enacting new budgetary realignments, designed to protect the short-term health of our business while also granting us the capacity to invest in our long-term strategy.”
The CEO also stressed on the company’s plan to integrate AI “with urgency”.
“The age of AI has started and we have been leading this change with GitHub Copilot, our most successful product launch to date. We have an enormous opportunity to build an integrated, AI-powered GitHub with urgency,” the email read.
GitHub was acquired by Microsoft in 2018. In October last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that GitHub’s revenue was at $1 billion annually.
“Four years since our acquisition, GitHub is now at $1 billion in annual recurring revenue,” the Microsoft CEO said.
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