GitHub is Laying Off 10 Percent of Staff, Going Fully Remote

GitHub revealed today that it will lay off 10 percent of its workforce of 3,000 employees and close all of its offices to work fully remotely.

“Today, we are announcing a number of difficult decisions, including saying goodbye to some Hubbers and enacting new budgetary realignments, designed to protect the short-term health of our business while also granting us the capacity to invest in our long-term strategy,” GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke wrote in an email to employees today. “Unfortunately, this will include changes that will result in a reduction of GitHub’s workforce by up to 10 percent through the end of [fiscal year 2023].”

(I assume GitHub’s FY23 aligns with that of parent company Microsoft. If so, this means through the end of June 2023.)

To improve its operational efficiency, GitHub will also move to be fully remote by closing offices as the leases end.

“We are seeing very low utilization rates in our offices around the world, and this decision is a testament to the success of our long-standing remote-first culture,” Dohmke continued. “We will share more workplace details and transition plans with you as they are finalized, … but I wanted to share two decisions with you. Effective immediately, we will be moving laptop refreshes from three years to four years [and] we will be moving to Microsoft Teams for the sole purpose of video conferencing, saving significant costs and simplifying cross-company and customer conversations. This move will be completed by September 1, 2023. We will remain on Slack as our day-to-day collaboration tool.”

GitHub hit $1 billion in annual recurring revenue in October 2022, and it announced that it is now used by over 100 million developers. But it also announced a hiring freeze in January that will continue.