AI push? LinkedIn slashes 281 jobs across California; Major impact on Engineering teams

The cuts, impacting offices in Mountain View, San Francisco, and other locations, follow Microsoft's broader restructuring and increased AI integration.

LinkedIn, the professional networking giant owned by Microsoft, has laid off 281 employees across multiple locations in California, impacting engineers and several other departments. The layoffs were confirmed through a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notice filed with local authorities, as reported by SF Gate.

The job cuts are spread across various California offices: 159 in Mountain View, 60 in San Francisco, 23 in Sunnyvale, 11 in Carpinteria, and 28 remote workers. A significant portion of the layoffs includes software engineers, with 71 roles in Mountain View alone eliminated across categories like "staff" and "senior" engineers.

Other impacted roles include machine learning specialists, DevOps engineers, product managers, designers, deal desk strategists, and infrastructure professionals.

The move is believed to be part of a broader restructuring at parent company Microsoft. Earlier in May, it was reported that 122 employees in the Bay Area were let go as part of a larger plan to reduce Microsoft’s workforce by around 6,000 globally.

While LinkedIn has not officially commented on the reasons behind this round of layoffs, industry observers point to Microsoft's growing integration of artificial intelligence as a possible factor. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that AI was now responsible for writing up to 30% of the company’s code.

LinkedIn, which previously laid off 716 employees in 2023, has not issued a public statement or internal memo addressing the current round of layoffs. Unlike last year, when LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky directly communicated the rationale to staff, there has been no such correspondence so far.