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‘Not a squeak’: Veteran tech workers face new reality amid layoffs and tough job market
Jonathan Duncan was laid off from Microsoft in May after more than two decades at the tech giant. Since then, he’s applied to roughly 200 jobs. The response has been silence.
“Not a squeak,” Duncan told GeekWire. He’s tried adapting resumes for each role, subscribing to job alerts, networking with peers, and internal referrals. Nothing has worked.
He’s not alone. Experienced tech professionals across the industry are learning they’re not immune to widespread layoffs — and that finding a new job isn’t as easy as it used to be.
For years, tech workers were told there was a talent shortage. Recruiters chased them. But in 2025, leaders who built their whole careers on growing headcount and mastering organizational processes are getting “mowed down right now in stunning numbers,” said Laura Close, CEO of Close Cohen, a job search and executive coaching firm.
Close said some “super high-value professionals” she works with are taking 12-to-18 months to find a new job.
“The golden age of the quick turnaround is over,” she said.
And in an industry that “equates youth with innovation and stamina,” Close said longtime workers are finding that their previous success metrics are no longer valued — decades of expertise have become liabilities, not assets.
“What we’re seeing right now is ageism on steroids,” Close said. She noted that in tech, age-related bias often begins as early as 40 — earlier than many assume.
A cooling market
Allison Shrivastava, an economist with Indeed, said it’s difficult for anyone trying to get hired — from new college grads to more veteran workers.
“If you’ve been trying to get a job or change jobs in a tech-related field, you’re probably really, really struggling,” she said.
While unemployment broadly remains low, the amount of time that people remain unemployed is increasing, Shrivastava said.
More than 114,000 tech workers have been laid off this year so far, compared to nearly 153,000 workers in 2024 and nearly 265,000 in 2023, according to Layoffs.fyi. The pace has slowed from 2023’s peak, but the cuts continue.
Seattle-area tech giants Microsoft and Amazon have announced major workforce reductions in 2025. Both companies are investing heavily in AI infrastructure while emphasizing efficiency.
As a senior manager at Microsoft, Duncan said budgets were recently slashed across the board — training, travel, morale-building. When people left, they weren’t replaced. Every quarter brought new demands to return unspent funds.
He also noticed what he calls “underleveling” — senior director roles being posted at lower levels than before, manager positions offered at what used to be individual contributor levels.
“I think the days of high-paying tech jobs are drying up,” he said.
Shrivastava said the current layoffs are likely a “shedding” from a massive over-hire during the post-pandemic tech boom, not necessarily an AI restructuring story.
But at the same time, as The Wall Street Journal reported, many companies are betting that AI can help them grow — without growing headcount.
‘Who am I?‘
For many of these workers, the timing couldn’t be worse with aging parents, kids heading to college, and retirement on the horizon.
“I consider this the most expensive time of my life,” Duncan said. His eldest son is a sophomore in college, and his youngest starts next fall. He’s also pricing out family plans for insurance for the first time.
And then there’s the stock compensation. When Duncan was laid off, he had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of unvested Microsoft shares.
“That was the kids’ college funds,” he said.
Nancy Poznoff, an executive coach at Close Cohen, said financial pressure is compounding an identity crisis for many laid-off executives.
“They’ve been high performers their whole career,” Poznoff said. “They’ve followed all the rules. They’ve done what they were supposed to do. And now they’re suddenly having this identity crisis on top of it, because a lot of them have been at their company for so long, they have this fear around, ‘How do I operate when I’m not at Amazon?’ Like, ‘Who am I?'”
“So you’ve got this financial pressure, and then you’ve got this ego bomb,” she added. “It’s a really tough time.”
Duncan still talks to his former teammates at Microsoft. The stress inside, he says, is brutal. He’s not sure he’d want to go back — even if he could.
Angus Norton, a former Microsoft and Amazon exec, recently wrote about the toll of perpetual layoffs on those who remain.
“It creates a hierarchy of fear. Everyone becomes a potential target. Everyone knows someone who was let go despite stellar performance,” he wrote. “The message is clear: no one is safe.”
