Microsoft to shut Nairobi engineering centre, putting hundreds of jobs at risk

Microsoft is winding down its Africa Development Centre (ADC) in Nairobi, putting nearly 400 jobs at risk and reversing a seven-year effort to make Kenya a hub for building technology for global markets.

Two employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told TechCabal that staff at the centre, housed in Dunhill Towers in Nairobi’s Westlands district, were called to a meeting on Monday morning and asked to meet with their managers by Friday, October 16, to discuss exit options, including severance terms.

The closure comes seven years after the company pledged more than $100 million to develop African tech talent, to make Nairobi one of its engineering hubs outside the US. It would unwind a project built on the promise that African engineers could build products for global markets without leaving the continent, raising questions about Microsoft’s long-term plans for engineering in Africa.

“We are communicating directly with employees in Kenya about proposed changes to our engineering operations,” a Microsoft spokesperson told TechCabal on Monday. “We recognise the uncertainty this brings and are keeping those discussions private. Microsoft remains committed to Kenya and will continue to have employees in the country while supporting the country’s ongoing digital transformation and innovation ambitions.”

The statement did not confirm the centre’s closure or specify how many employees would remain or when the changes would take effect.

Two other employees, who asked not to be named as they aren’t authorised to discuss the matter, told TechCabal they expect their meetings with supervisors to focus on severance terms rather than on whether they will stay.

“Our case is sealed; we just didn’t know when,” one employee said.

Another person familiar with the matter said fewer than 10 employees are expected to remain, including staff in sales and recruiting, two in Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS), which manages customer and partner relationships, and employees working on AI for Good, Microsoft’s initiative to apply AI to social and environmental challenges.

Microsoft’s seven-year bet on African engineering

When Microsoft launched the Africa Development Centre (ADC) in 2019, Michael Fortin, then a corporate vice president, said it would allow engineers to do “meaningful work from their home countries” while working within a global engineering organisation. Microsoft planned to hire 100 engineers by the end of 2019 and grow the workforce across Nairobi and Lagos to 500 by 2023.

L-R: Jack Ngare, managing director Microsoft Africa Development Centre – Nairobi, and former Kenya president Uhuru Kenyatta during the opening of the ADC in 2019. Image: ADC Kenya

By December 2022, Microsoft President Brad Smith said the Nairobi centre employed more than 450 engineers. The centre had met its original hiring ambition, making it harder to explain the closure as a failure to deliver on its initial promise.

The Nairobi closure follows Microsoft’s May 2024 decision to shut its sister centre in Lagos, a move the company said at the time would not affect its operations in Kenya. The Lagos closure caught staff by surprise, while Nairobi employees say they had seen signs of trouble for some time.

On Monday, Kenya’s ICT Minister William Kabogo said he met a Microsoft delegation led by Jeff Bullwinkel, the company’s vice president and deputy general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with its East Africa team headed by Angela Ng’ang’a.

Microsoft briefed him on “its evolving operations in Kenya in the context of its global restructuring,” Kabogo said, while he pressed the company on “protecting jobs at Microsoft’s Nairobi engineering centre.”

The company reaffirmed its long-term commitment to Kenya, he said, and both sides agreed to draft a joint action plan. Neither has disclosed what the plan will contain or whether it could change a decision employees describe as final.

Microsoft has yet to disclose why it is closing the Nairobi centre, and people familiar with the matter point to several possible factors. The decision comes amid a wider round of cuts at the company, which announced about 4,800 job cuts in July 2026, or roughly 2.1% of its workforce, following about 15,000 cuts in 2025.

The reductions come as Microsoft pours record sums into AI infrastructure, raising questions about which parts of its business will continue to receive funding. A remote engineering centre could come under pressure, though no public evidence links the Nairobi closure directly to the global cuts.

Kenya has also struggled to advance another major Microsoft initiative. The $1 billion data centre that Microsoft planned with Abu Dhabi-based G42 in Olkaria has stalled amid concerns about electricity capacity and disagreements over the Kenyan government’s ability to guarantee payments for the facility’s capacity. President William Ruto has cited the country’s limited power supply as a problem. However, government officials have said the project has not been abandoned.

A third possible factor is the cost of maintaining a large local workforce, particularly its tax bill. One employee told TechCabal that Microsoft’s Kenyan employees generate at least KES 1.5 billion ($11.6 million) in annual Pay As You Earn (PAYE) taxes for the Kenya Revenue Authority. TechCabal could not independently verify the figures.

The closure would return hundreds of engineers to a job market Microsoft helped reshape when it opened the centre in 2019. The company recruited talent from Kenyan banks, telcos and technology firms to build its local engineering team.

Seven years later, those employers and other technology companies will be among the places its departing engineers may look to next, raising questions about where the specialised talent built at the centre will go and whether Kenya can retain the skills and experience it took Microsoft years to assemble.

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