from Hacker News

Microsoft Exempts Many Salespeople from Return-to-Office Mandate

by toomuchtodo on 10/21/25, 5:58 PM with 4 comments

• by austin-cheney on 10/21/25, 6:01 PM

  Of course. Sales people make money. They are ones who put money in your wallet. The good ones are the last people you want to scare off. Even worse is that they can be scared away to a competitor.

  Developers, on the other hand, are a replaceable cost center. Developers never make money. They only cost money, and if a developer gets upset they can be replaces with minimal consequence.

• by vondur on 10/21/25, 6:11 PM

  Many outside sales people have worked from home for quite a while. My wife worked as a scientific sales person and worked from home. The home office was on the other side of the US and she was responsible for her territory.

• by techblueberry on 10/21/25, 6:02 PM

  This seems a little bananas, since I assumed RTO was always a sales thing the rest of us had to live with.

• by georgeburdell on 10/21/25, 6:00 PM

  This is probably a productivity boost for engineers who would have been sitting nearby