Thursday, October 29, 2026
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Microsoft's 60,000 buyout offers skip sales and security: what to ask

About a quarter of Microsoft's staff can take the offer by early December. Microsoft has named no product or support changes, so the useful work is checking who your named contacts are before renewals.

Jordan Hale Editor · · 2 min read
a building with a microsoft sign on the side of it

About 60,000 Microsoft employees, about a quarter of its staff, can now take a paid voluntary exit. The offer covers staff in four countries: the US, the UK, Canada and India. Chief people officer Amy Coleman announced the program on October 26. Eligible staff are at level 70 and below in teams that chose to take part, and they have until early December to decide, with departures at year-end, The Seattle Times and Computerworld report. Pay is standard severance for each country.

Microsoft has not published which teams are in. Coleman's post says only that some organizations are offering it and some are not. Three outlets have reported lists, and they agree on most of it:

  • In: Windows and Devices, Copilot and Xbox (The Seattle Times, and Reuters as cited by Fast Company and Computerworld), plus HR and finance (The Seattle Times, and Reuters via Fast Company)
  • Out: security, marketing and commercial business (The Seattle Times and Reuters). Bloomberg, citing a Microsoft spokesperson, reported that staff focused on data centers and those in sales and marketing are excluded, CBS News says.
  • Partly in: cloud, AI and legal, per The Seattle Times. Reuters lists the AI experiences group as fully in.

For IT buyers, the reported exclusions put sales and security staff outside the offer, for now. Product groups behind Windows and Copilot are not. Tech Insider notes that Microsoft has not linked any product or support change to the offer, and Microsoft did not immediately respond to Computerworld's request for comment. Coleman's post ties each team's choice to its "customer commitments," among other things.

Nobody knows yet how many will accept. An earlier voluntary retirement offer this year reached more than 8,700 US staff, and about a third took it, according to The Seattle Times.

What IT teams should do

  1. Confirm who your accountable account owner is and who the qualified backup is, as Sanchit Vir Gogia of Greyhound Research advised in Computerworld. Do it before any year-end renewal.
  2. For projects that depend on Microsoft engineers, such as an Azure migration or a Dynamics rollout, ask who is assigned through January.
  3. Treat preview features on Windows and Copilot roadmaps as plans, not contract terms. Put any date you rely on into the agreement.

Sources