An accountant at a bank in Pune opens her laptop, and it starts Windows. She reads her email in Outlook, joins a call on Teams, and updates a sheet in Excel. The bank's finance records may sit in Dynamics, and its apps may run on Azure. In one working day, she may use a dozen Microsoft products without thinking about it.
Microsoft was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and is based near Seattle. It began by selling software for personal computers. Today it sells almost everything a company runs on. That includes the operating system, the office software and the cloud. It also includes business applications, security tools, and the tools developers use to write code.
Microsoft's biggest engineering base in India is the India Development Center, set up in Hyderabad in 1998. It is Microsoft's largest engineering centre outside the United States. Microsoft also has engineers in Bengaluru and Noida.
Every name listed here has posted software engineering jobs in India.
What Microsoft sells, and to whom
Most of Microsoft's money comes from companies, not from people at home. A company pays Microsoft in a few ways:
a subscription for each employeefor Microsoft 365, which includes Office, Outlook and Teams
payment for what it useson Azure, Microsoft's cloud
licences and subscriptionsfor business software, such as Dynamics, and for security products
People at home buy Microsoft products too. Most get Windows with a new laptop, because the laptop maker pays Microsoft for it. Others buy an Xbox, a Microsoft 365 subscription or a game.
Most of Microsoft's money comes from companies, which pay a subscription for each employee for Microsoft 365, pay for what they use on Azure, and buy licences and subscriptions for Dynamics and the security products. People at home pay too, for an Xbox, a game or Microsoft 365, and most get Windows with a new laptop because the laptop maker pays Microsoft for it.
Microsoft's products fall into a few large families:
Windowsthe operating system on most of the world's personal computers, and Windows Server, for servers
Microsoft 365Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams for chat, calls and meetings
Azurethe second-largest cloud in the world, after AWS
Business applicationsDynamics, for a company's finance, operations and sales. And the Power Platform, with Power BI for reports and Power Apps for building simple apps
Securitytools that protect a company's users, laptops and cloud, such as Defender, Sentinel, Entra and Intune
Developer toolsVisual Studio, and GitHub, where most of the world's open-source code lives, bought in 2018
LinkedInthe professional network, bought in 2016
GamingXbox, and game studios such as Activision Blizzard, bought in 2023
Search and AIBing, and Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant, built into most of its products
Microsoft's product families, layer by layer: Azure, its cloud, at the bottom; Windows on the laptop and the server; Microsoft 365, the business apps, the security tools and the developer tools on top; and Copilot built into most of them. LinkedIn, Xbox and Bing reach people directly.
What it builds in India
Microsoft's engineers in India work across almost all of these families. They build parts of Azure, Microsoft 365, Windows, Dynamics, the security products, Bing and Copilot. Their work is not a separate Indian version of the product. It is part of the same product the rest of the world uses.
Microsoft also runs a large support operation in India. Its engineers help companies that use Azure and Microsoft 365 when something goes wrong.
You're reading as a guest. Sign in free to follow links for five minutes, once an hour.
Sign in
Where its products are explained
Most of what Microsoft sells is also made by other companies. The product-companies collection explains how each kind of product works, through those companies:
Azure, as a cloudMarket Segment 5.1, Cloud infrastructure and web hosting providers, in Industry Vertical 5, Cloud providers and OS makers.
Azure's data centresMarket Segment 3.1, Data centre and colocation providers, in Industry Vertical 3, Data centres and servers.
Windows ServerMarket Segment 5.2, Enterprise Linux and private cloud platforms, in Industry Vertical 5, Cloud providers and OS makers.
Microsoft 365 and TeamsMarket Segment 16.3, Work management and knowledge platforms, in Industry Vertical 16, IT management and workplace tools.
Teams, for calls and meetingsMarket Segment 2.2, UCaaS and cloud phone systems, in Industry Vertical 2, Business communications.
Intune, for managing employees' laptopsMarket Segment 16.2, Virtual desktops (VDI) and digital employee experience, in Industry Vertical 16, IT management and workplace tools.
Dynamics, for finance and operationsMarket Segment 10.1, ERP and business accounting software, in Industry Vertical 10, ERP and business automation.
Dynamics, for salesMarket Segment 14.1, CRM software, in Industry Vertical 14, CRM and sales tech.
The Power PlatformMarket Segment 10.3, RPA, process mining and low-code platforms, in Industry Vertical 10, ERP and business automation.
Power BIMarket Segment 8.2, Business intelligence (BI) and analytics platforms, in Industry Vertical 8, Analytics and data providers.
SQL ServerMarket Segment 7.1, Databases and data warehouses, in Industry Vertical 7, Database and storage companies.
Visual Studio and GitHubMarket Segment 6.1, DevOps and CI/CD tools, in Industry Vertical 6, Devtools companies.
GitHub CopilotMarket Segment 6.4, AI coding tools, in Industry Vertical 6, Devtools companies.
SentinelMarket Segment 4.9, SIEM and security operations (SOC), in Industry Vertical 4, Cybersecurity.
LinkedInMarket Segment 12.5, AI recruiting and talent intelligence platforms, in Industry Vertical 12, HR tech.
Microsoft's AI modelsMarket Segment 9.1, Foundation model companies, in Industry Vertical 9, AI labs and model platforms.
The names it hires under
Microsoft hires in India under two names:
Microsoftthe company's own name, used across its products
Microsoft Innovation Centera name Microsoft uses for centres that work with start-ups, students and partner companies on new technology
Microsoft also posts jobs under the name Microsoft AI.
Copilot everywhere.
Microsoft is building AI into almost every product it sells, under the name Copilot. Much of this AI comes from its partnership with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, whose models run on Azure. Microsoft is also building its own AI models and chips. Its models come from Microsoft AI, a division set up in 2024, which also builds the Copilot app for people at home. And it has announced a large new investment in cloud and AI data centres in India.
That is Microsoft: the software most companies run on, from the laptop to the cloud, with engineers in India working on nearly all of it.