At the beginning of the meta-universe war, Microsoft was tragically "dug into the wall": a hundred professionals were lost in a year

According to the Wall Street Journal reported on the 10th, due to the meta (formerly Facebook) company announced a large-scale entry into the meta-universe industry, it began to recruit relevant technical personnel. Microsoft is particularly ahead of its rivals in augmented reality, so its employees are particularly favored. According to former Microsoft employees as well as publicly available information on the web, Microsoft's augmented reality team has lost about 100 people in the past year, many of whom went to Meta, meaning the scramble for employees with the skills to build metaversms is heating up.

Microsoft is one of the pioneers in augmented reality Image source: Bloomberg

Departing employees include long-term team leaders

Former Microsoft employees reportedly said the company's competitors have been scrambling for people with experience developing Microsoft HoloLen augmented reality headsets, sometimes offering double wages. Microsoft's augmented reality group has about 1,500 employees, they say.

LinkedIn of more than 70 former employees of the HoloLens team show that they left Microsoft in the past year. More than 40 people have joined Meta.

Facebook renamed Meta to reposition the company around the metacosm Image Source: The Wall Street Journal

The departing employees included some of the team's long-term leaders. Charlie Han, who was responsible for gathering customer feedback for HoloLens, left in the summer to join Meta. Josh Miller, who works on the display team, became Meta's show project director in the previous months. Neither Han nor Miller responded to requests for comment on the movements.

Microsoft declined to share details about the HoloLens team, but said employee turnover is a frequent challenge for many teams, and Microsoft does everything it can to retain employees and will hire new employees when needed.

Avoid brain drain Technology companies offer high rewards

Microsoft isn't the only company facing challenges because of Meta's growing thirst for talent. According to former Microsoft employees and former Apple employees who have switched to Meta, Apple employees are also flowing to Meta. Bloomberg previously reported on Apple's attempts to limit departures. Apple declined to comment.

To avoid brain drain, Apple offers high rewards, with engineers receiving up to $180,000 in stock prizes that will be paid out in the form of restricted stock for a vesting period of four years, which also means that once the reward is accepted, it will remain at Apple for the last four years. Of course, Apple has also poached some talent from Meta, mainly focusing on VR/AR and smartwatches.

Upstream News Mawtan Compiled