Stack Overflow, a question-and-answer portal for developers, will lay off 10% of its workforce, the company announced on Thursday.
The job cuts, which will affect at least 58 employees, are a result of the company’s renewed focus on profitability due to macroeconomic concerns, CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar said in a blog post.
“Our focus for this fiscal year is on profitability and that, along with macroeconomic pressures, led to today’s changes. They were also the result of taking a hard look at our strategic priorities for this fiscal year as well as our organizational structure as we invest in the continued growth of Stack Overflow for Teams and pursue agility and flexibility,” Chandrasekar said.
The employees affected by the layoffs, who are being provided with severance packages and extended health benefits, include UX designers, human resource professionals, product designers, and senior software developers, LinkedIn posts from the affected employees showed.
Layoffs at several technology companies, including the likes of Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft, have seen professionals in similar roles lose jobs since the middle of last year.
According to data compiled by Layoffs.fyi, the online tracker keeping tabs on job losses in the technology sector, 665 tech companies have laid off about 192,722 staff so far this year, compared to 164,591 layoffs last year.
In order to focus on profitability, Stack Overflow will soon launch AI and machine learning offerings in the coming months, the CEO said.
The decision to launch AI and machine learning offerings could be attributed to the launch of several new product offerings from vendors such as AWS, IBM, and Google, driven by demand from enterprises to adopt generative AI and natural language processing capabilities.