The Y means YC, and yes.

MS has a strict "only-hire-in-India" policy now.

Not to be a downer, but given the current market they are kind of screwed.

Ok, not asking in the context of this thread but in general: why do you think so? With their stake in openai especially and github being a good place to sell AI code assistants (one of the clear revenue streams for LLMs thus far) they seem quite well placed. Is it all their big "enterprise" and government contracts that bring them a lot of money now losing value?

1. Operational work is difficult to justify extremely high TCs

2. Other aspects of the business such as Cybersecurity just lack domestic talent in the US. That's why much of the MS Security portfolio engineering team is in Israel or India or people who are brought in via an L1/2

3. Vast swathes of MS employees from line level ICs up to Engineering Directors were stuck in immigration limbo because of the GC backlog or because of older parents, so a large number began returning to India with a slight shave on TC.

Oh you meant the friends. I thought you were talking about MS the company being screwed. But yes that makes sense for the former interpretation.