Microsoft is winding down engineering operations at its Africa Development Centre in Nairobi, putting nearly 400 jobs at risk and unwinding a seven-year pledge to make Kenya a hub for building technology for global markets.
Staff at the centre in Dunhill Towers, Westlands, were called to a meeting on Monday morning and told to meet managers by Friday, October 16, to discuss exit options including severance, two employees told TechCabal on condition of anonymity. A Microsoft spokesperson said the company was “communicating directly with employees in Kenya about proposed changes to our engineering operations” and “will continue to have employees in the country,” without confirming a full site closure, headcount or end date.
From $100m promise to exit talks
Microsoft launched the ADC in 2019 with a commitment of more than $100 million over five years and a plan to hire 500 engineers across Nairobi and Lagos by 2023. Brad Smith said in December 2022 that Nairobi alone employed more than 450 engineers. The Lagos sister centre closed in May 2024; Microsoft said then that Kenya would not be affected. Employees now describe the Nairobi outcome as effectively sealed, with fewer than 10 roles expected to remain in sales, recruiting, partner solutions and AI for Good, people familiar with the matter told TechCabal.
“Our case is sealed; we just didn’t know when,” one employee said. tech-ish reported that every ADC role in Nairobi is going, and that Microsoft’s line about continuing to operate in Kenya mirrors language used when Lagos engineering shut while sales and support stayed open.
Kabogo presses for jobs plan
On the same day staff were briefed, ICT Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo met a Microsoft delegation led by Jeff Bullwinkel, vice president and deputy general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with East Africa lead Angela Ng’ang’a. Kabogo said he pressed the company on protecting jobs at the Nairobi engineering centre and that both sides agreed to draft a joint action plan. Neither side has published what the plan contains.
The move lands amid wider Microsoft cuts — about 4,800 jobs in July 2026 after roughly 15,000 in 2025 — and as a separate $1 billion Olkaria data-centre plan with Abu Dhabi’s G42 has faced power-capacity and payment-guarantee questions. For Kenya’s tech employers, banks and telcos that once lost talent to the ADC, the immediate commercial question is where hundreds of specialised engineers will land, and whether the skills Microsoft assembled over seven years stay in Nairobi or leave the market.
Photo: Antony Trivet / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sources: TechCabal, tech-ish, Wikimedia Commons. Last updated October 2026.
