Day: July 23, 2025

• Patrice Melekian was laid off from his manager job after working at Microsoft for 17 years.
• Some tech firms have reduced management layers, a trend some have dubbed the “Great Flattening.”
• Melekian shared what his manager job was like — and how he’s approaching his next career move.

Patrice Melekian wanted to experience life in the US, and his job at Microsoft was his ticket.

He told Business Insider he had a good, 17-year run with the company — until he got laid off from his manager job in May. He’s returned to his home country of France, and while he’s still figuring out his next career move, he said he might look outside management for his next role.

Like many laid-off workers, Melekian doesn’t know exactly why his job was cut. But he said Microsoft leaders have spoken about reducing management layers and improving efficiency — language that has coincided with manager layoffs over the past year. Melekian believes these efforts are part of a broader trend in tech.

“Many companies in the tech industry, including Microsoft, have been moving to flatten their organizations to streamline the decision process,” said the 54-year-old.

In May, Microsoft laid off roughly 6,000 employees in an effort to increase what it calls “span of control” — or the number of employees who report to each manager, Business Insider previously reported. Then, earlier this month, the company laid off roughly 9,000 more workers. A spokesperson told BI earlier this month that the company was focused on reducing management layers and streamlining processes.

It’s not just Microsoft. Companies like Google, Intel, Amazon, and Walmart have announced plans to reduce the number of managers. This trend, which some have dubbed the “Great Flattening,” refGreat Flatteningpush to reduce costs and bureaucracy — moves some corporate executives say will make their organizations more efficient.

Microsoft did not respond to BI’s request for comment.

We want to hear from middle managers, job seekers, and people who’ve recently landed a job. If you’re open to sharing your story, please fill out one or more of the linked Google Forms.

Having fewer reports left more time for other work tasks

Melekian joined Microsoft in 2007 through an acquisition, taking on a role as a program manager architect. He grew up in France and was living in Paris at the time, but became interested in moving to the US — partly out of curiosity about what it would be like to live there.

In 2013, he relocated with his wife and two sons from Paris to Redmond, Washington — home to Microsoft’s headquarters — to take a senior program manager role. At the time of his layoff, he was a principal product manager, leading a team of three.

While Microsoft’s effort to reduce management layers could leave some managers with more direct reports, Melekian said the number of people reporting to him hovered between two and three, depending on business needs — a structure he thinks worked well for his team.

He said his role, which required balancing management responsibilities with hands-on project work, didn’t change much during his three years as a principal product manager. Having a modest team size gave him the flexibility to spend more time on projects — something he appreciated.

“When you have a team of three, you don’t have to spend that much time managing,” he said. “If a new opportunity came up and everybody was packed, that allowed me to jump in, take some of my own time, and go after it myself.”

Melekian said he started his principal product manager role during the pandemic, when remote work was widespread at the company. When Microsoft’s offices reopened, he had the option to continue working from home and chose to do so. Microsoft’s policy currently allows most employees to work remotely at least part of the time, though a decline in productivity could prompt a shift in policy, BI previously reported.

His next role might not be in management

Though a layoff is rarely happy news, Melekian said the timing was relatively fortunate: He had already been planning to move back to France for personal and family reasons. With his parents getting older, he wanted to be closer in case they needed support. His youngest son also just graduated from high school and plans to attend school in France this fall.

“With our children and our own aging parents all being in France, there was nothing holding my wife and me back in the US,” he said.

Melekian said he’s already sold his home in the US and returned to France, but hasn’t started actively job hunting yet. He plans to do so later this summer once he’s more settled.

When his job search picks up, he’s not sure whether he’ll prioritize management roles or individual contributor positions. He said he may prefer a role with less managerial responsibility — one where he can have a more direct impact.

“Manager roles certainly align with my experience, but I may also consider roles where I can contribute directly with my expertise,” he said.

Melekian said he has a few pieces of advice for people who are dealing with layoffs or career transitions. First, rely on others for advice and support.

“You’d be surprised how willing people are to share their own similar experiences and help you navigate transitions,” he said.

Additionally, he recommended people keep an open mind to different job opportunities — and not rush their next career decision.

“A layoff can feel like a personal failure, but it’s usually the result of a broader business shift rather than an indication of your worth as a professional,” he said. “Use the pause as an opportunity to reassess what’s genuinely important for you personally and professionally.”

• OpenAI has rolled out a new engineering role to help clients accelerate their AI projects, an exec said.
• The forward-deployed engineer is a role popularized by Palantir, the government-focused software giant.
• The role addresses a key bottleneck for companies: getting AI trials to production.

OpenAI is scaling up its global presence with a boots-on-the-ground strategy.

OpenAI’s international managing director, Oliver Jay, said on Wednesday at the Fortune Brainstorm AI 2025 conference in Singapore that the company has rolled out a new engineering role — the forward-deployed engineer — to help clients with their AI projects.

“This new model for us, hiring our own engineers to help deploy for our largest projects, is something that we see as a really specific way to advance the acceleration of advanced AI into scale production cases,” Jay said.

The company has worked with a few “pilot customers” to test this new role, he added.

“We like to deploy and learn from the field, and through that process, we learned a lot of techniques,” Jay said.

The term “forward-deployed engineer” was popularized by Palantir, the government-focused software giant. It refers to engineers who embed with clients to fine-tune the product on-site.

Jay said the role was born out of a key bottleneck OpenAI noticed over the past year: Clients need to bridge the gap from trial to production.

AI doesn’t work like cloud software, which is straightforward to test and deploy, Jay said.

“As you scale, you need advanced techniques to set guardrails, to evaluate the accuracy and the models,” he added. “This is where we solve the latest gap between companies.”

Jay’s comments come as OpenAI deepens its footprint in Asia, with offices in Singapore, Tokyo, and Seoul. The company’s chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, wrote in an X post in May that growth in ChatGPT’s user base in South Korea has been “off the charts.”

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

OpenAI hiring forward-deployed engineers

Earlier this year, OpenAI’s global head of forward-deployed engineering, Colin Jarvis, announced in a LinkedIn post that he would be leading the company’s new forward-deployed engineering function.

“Our focus is getting our customers to production, whether it’s through a zero-to-one novel application of our tech or helping you to scale proven cases,” he wrote.

In a LinkedIn post last month, Jarvis said OpenAI is hiring engineering managers to “lead teams tackling the hardest real-world problems with AI,” with roles available in San Francisco, New York, Dublin, London, Paris, and Munich.

A current job listing for a forward-deployed engineer based in New York lists compensation between $220,000 and $280,000, plus equity.

OpenAI also posted a similar role in Singapore four months ago, signaling expansion of the team into Asia.

The forward-deployed software engineer model has become a launchpad for startup founders — and a powerful way to land enterprise deals.

A former forward-deployed software engineer at Palantir told Business Insider the role fast-tracked the skills she needed to learn to run a startup successfully.

“It’s definitely founder preparation bootcamp,” she said. “As a founder, you have to talk to investors, land partnerships, and be outward-facing, but you also have to put your head down, build a product, code, and be inward-facing. It’s the same dynamic with being a Forward Deployed Engineer.”

On an episode of the “Y Combinator” podcast published last month, YC partner Diana Hu said she and her team have seen founders close “six, seven seven-figure deals” with large enterprises by being forward-deployed engineers.

YC’s CEO, Garry Tan, also said on the podcast that this model gives AI startups a chance to outmaneuver giants like Salesforce, Oracle, and Booz Allen.