Microsoft's engineering team at its Africa Development Centre (ADC) in Nairobi appears to be on its way out. Staff at the centre were told on Monday, 12 October, that their roles are going, according to CIO Africa, which first reported the move citing a person who worked there. Kenyan outlet Tech-ish says it confirmed the news with people at the centre.
Microsoft has not used the word "closure". A spokesperson described the changes as "proposed" and part of a global restructuring that affects its engineering operations in Kenya. The company said it is talking directly with affected employees, that those conversations will stay private, and that it "will continue to have employees in the country" and keep serving customers in the region.
What Microsoft has not said matters as much: it has given no number of affected staff and no final working date. Until it does, the story remains a reported shutdown of the engineering function rather than a confirmed exit from Kenya.
Government steps in the same day
On the day staff got the news, Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for ICT and the Digital Economy, William Kabogo, met a Microsoft delegation led by Jeff Bullwinkel, the company's vice president and deputy general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Kabogo said he pressed the company on protecting jobs at the Nairobi engineering centre, keeping local tech talent in the country and holding on to investor confidence. He said Microsoft restated its long-term commitment to Kenya, and the two sides are expected to work on a joint plan covering AI in government, digitising public services, cybersecurity, digital infrastructure and skills.
From a $100 million promise to "proposed changes"
The ADC was announced in May 2019 with a pledge of about $100 million over five years and two sites, Nairobi and Lagos. The goal was to hire 500 engineers across both by 2023, building products used worldwide from African cities instead of only selling into the continent.
Nairobi became the larger of the two. In March 2022, Uhuru Kenyatta opened the centre's own campus at Dunhill Towers on Waiyaki Way in Westlands. When Microsoft and UAE firm G42 announced a $1 billion digital investment package for Kenya in May 2024, the company put ADC Nairobi's headcount at around 500 people, the last figure it has published.
Lagos went first. In May 2024 Microsoft told staff there it would close the Nigerian ADC, while saying at the time that the Kenyan centre was not affected. Now Nairobi faces the same fate, little more than two years later.
What it means for Kenya's engineers
The ADC mattered beyond its own payroll. It was one of the few places in East Africa where engineers could work on core products for a global tech company without leaving home, at global-standard pay, and it trained people who went on to start and staff local startups. Losing it removes a rare senior-engineering ladder from the Nairobi market at a time when funding for local startups is tighter and remote roles are harder to land.
Signs of strain came before Monday's news. A former product manager at the centre wrote on LinkedIn in September that some staff had been offered performance improvement plans or a "voluntary" exit. Microsoft has not commented publicly on those claims.
The move also raises fresh questions about the G42 package. Its flagship geothermal-powered data centre at Olkaria has not been built, and talks were reported in May 2026 to have stalled over capacity-payment commitments, though the government has said the project is not dead. The ADC was meant to run a startup innovation lab under that same deal.
What to watch
- Whether Microsoft confirms the scale of the cuts and a closing date for the Nairobi engineering team.
- Severance terms and whether any roles are moved to other Microsoft sites rather than cut.
- Whether the joint action plan promised after the Kabogo meeting produces anything concrete.
- Where hundreds of experienced engineers land next, and which local companies are ready to hire them.
For Kenya's tech scene, the bigger lesson is one Lagos already learned: a Big Tech office is a welcome boost, but it is not a strategy. The engineers it trained are the asset that stays.
