“Difficult to walk away but…”: Microsoft VP retires after 23 years to spend more time with ageing parents in India
After spending 23 years at Microsoft, Kesavan Shanmugam has decided to step away from a senior engineering role to spend more time with his ageing parents in India. The Microsoft vice president of engineering announced his retirement in a LinkedIn post, explaining that he wanted to focus on his family and friends. His decision comes as he was working on Excel Copilot and agentic artificial intelligence systems at the technology company. While leaving the work and colleagues he enjoyed was difficult, Shanmugam said he believed the decision was right for him. “After 23 years at Microsoft, I am retiring today to spend more time with my aging parents in India,” he wrote in his LinkedIn post. He added, “It was difficult to walk away from the exciting work in Excel Copilot and the amazing colleagues at Microsoft. But it is also the right trade-off for me to focus my energy on family and friends.”
“Fun, exciting and fulfilling”: He thanks Microsoft colleagues
LinkedIn/@Kesavan Shanmugam
Shanmugam also expressed gratitude to the people he had worked with throughout his career at Microsoft. He said the company had made it possible for him to make this choice and thanked colleagues, both past and present, for their contribution to his professional journey. “I am deeply grateful to Microsoft for making it possible to even make such a tradeoff. And a huge thanks to everyone at Microsoft, past and present, who made my journey at Microsoft fun, exciting and fulfilling,” he wrote.
Thousands of reactions on LinkedIn
His announcement drew thousands of reactions on LinkedIn, with several users praising his decision to prioritise time with his parents. One user commented, “I don’t personally know you, brother, but your decision to prioritise your parents caught my attention, and you have my best wishes.” Another wrote,”That’s probably one of best decesions you can take. As someone who just lost one parent I will urge you highly you try your best to keep them close.” One more user added, “The decision is right, but it would have been even better if they had brought their parents to live with them.” The responses reflected how his decision resonated with people who saw it as a choice to make time for family while he still could.
His retirement comes during Microsoft’s AI push
Shanmugam’s departure follows more than two decades at Microsoft and comes as the company continues to develop and integrate AI tools into its products. His work included Excel Copilot and agentic AI initiatives, which were also mentioned in his retirement post. For Shanmugam, however, the decision was not framed as a rejection of his work. He acknowledged that leaving projects he found exciting and colleagues he valued was difficult, but said spending more time with family and friends was the right trade-off for him.
Another Indian-origin tech leader has moved closer to family
Shanmugam’s decision follows a similar move by Balaji Gururajan, a former Meta engineering leader who said he had relocated from the US to Bengaluru after 18 years to be closer to his ageing parents. Gururajan said he did not want to watch an important phase of his family’s life from a distance. The two cases highlight a personal consideration that can arise for professionals who have spent years building careers abroad: how to balance demanding work with the time they want to spend with ageing parents.
