In 2019, Microsoft flew into Nairobi with a bold pledge: more than $100 million invested, a brand-new Africa Development Centre, and a promise that African engineers could build world-class products without packing their bags. By 2022, the Nairobi centre had hired over 450 engineers, hitting its original target ahead of schedule. That momentum felt like a turning point for the continent's tech ambitions.
Six years later, the centre is being wound down. Microsoft employees in Nairobi were called to a meeting and told to meet their managers by October 16 to discuss exit options, including severance terms. Nearly 400 jobs are at risk. The company has not confirmed exactly how many people will be let go, but says the changes are part of a global restructuring, and that it remains committed to Kenya.
This did not come out of nowhere. In March 2023, Microsoft cut jobs at the Nairobi hub as part of a 10,000-person global layoff. In 2024, it shut down its engineering centre in Lagos entirely, though it assured staff in Kenya that those changes would not affect them. Then in July 2025, the company cut roughly 2.1% of its global workforce. Nairobi, it turns out, was not insulated after all.
Kenya's ICT minister William Kabogo met with a Microsoft delegation on Monday and said the two sides agreed to develop an action plan. What that plan looks like in practice, and whether it can change anything for the workers already waiting on severance conversations, is still unclear.
What is not unclear is what is now sitting in Kenya's lap. Microsoft spent seven years recruiting top engineers from local banks, telecom companies, and tech firms, and training them to ship products for global markets. That talent is now available, and the question Kenya has to answer quickly is how to keep it from walking out the door entirely.
Originally published by TechCabal.