On October 8, 2026, something happened that sounds like a joke, except it actually happened. Donald Trump awarded Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. On the very same day, the US Department of Labor suspended Microsoft from the PERM program, an employment certification process used by foreign professionals seeking permanent residency in the United States. Adobe and some of the world’s largest outsourcing companies also appeared on the list: Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini. One administration, one day, and two radically different messages.

And that is not all. Three months earlier, Microsoft announced a $2.5 billion investment under which 6,000 experts would work directly with customers to implement AI solutions. Vendor experts, working closely with customers and supporting specific projects. Sound familiar? In Poland, we would immediately think of IT outsourcing or staff augmentation, while the tech industry calls this model forward deployed engineers — engineers embedded with customers. This is where the most interesting part of the story begins. Perhaps the fact that companies need external specialists is not changing. What is changing is what they are willing to pay for and how much accountability they expect from their providers.

What Was Really Going on in Washington

Vice President J.D. Vance argued that H-1B visas were supposed to attract the best of the best but had become a loophole for abuse, while the PERM program was the route through which these workers could remain in the United States permanently. He accused Microsoft of laying off 6,000 employees while simultaneously obtaining approval for a similar number of visas. The company responded that 80 percent of its applications concerned extensions or changes of status for people who were already working there. It is not for me to decide who is right. What matters more is the nature of the accusation: the problem is not the use of foreign specialists itself, but the suspicion that they are simply a cheaper way to fill positions.

Meanwhile, in Poland

On July 8, a reform of the State Labour Inspectorate (PIP) came into effect. An inspector can order a civil-law contract to be changed and, if the company fails to comply, initiate a decision recognizing the arrangement as an employment relationship. According to figures reported in mid-October, PIP had received 1,362 complaints concerning civil-law contracts since the regulations took effect, and inspectors had issued orders to change the arrangements in 607 cases. These are not final decisions, and the cases do not concern IT exclusively, but the direction is clear: what matters is not the name of the contract, but how the working relationship operates in practice.

For the IT industry, an August PIP interpretation concerning an IT company was particularly significant. The inspectorate assessed a specific working model: B2B contractors organize their own work, can refuse assignments, and are liable for errors under contractual penalty clauses, while project managers define scope, quality, and deadlines but do not hire people or grant pay rises. The conclusion was that a manager oversees the process, not the people. This interpretation does not settle the question for every contract in the industry, but it clearly illustrates what inspectors look at.

Two Cases, One Direction

In the United States, the issue concerns the rules governing the employment of foreign professionals. In Poland, it is whether B2B contracts are being used to disguise what is effectively employment. Legally, these are two different matters, but both show that the way companies source IT specialists is now under regulatory scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic. The market is sending a similar message, only in the language of money. According to Lightcast data, the number of job postings for forward deployed engineers rose by more than 1,000 percent between January and August 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, while the overall technology job market grew by 13 percent. The median advertised salary in the United States exceeds $188,000 a year, and Palantir, OpenAI, Anthropic, and AWS are building similar teams. Their contracting models differ from Poland’s traditional staff augmentation, but the underlying principle is the same: the most valuable people are vendor-employed specialists who work closely with customers and take responsibility for making implementations work.

A similar signal can be seen in traditional outsourcing. According to an ISG study, only 8 percent of insurance companies outsourcing business processes would renew their contracts on the existing terms. The data covers just one segment of the outsourcing market, but the message is telling: as many as 86 percent of clients want to renegotiate their contracts to capture AI-related benefits or completely restructure the terms of their partnerships. Clients no longer want to maintain the existing model. They expect providers to deliver measurable results.

What This Means for Polish Clients

I do not believe staff augmentation is coming to an end. On the contrary, flexible access to specialists will remain essential because AI implementations require people whom companies cannot hire as permanent employees in just a few weeks. The PIP reform could also increase the importance of good outsourcing providers. Not because working with an outsourcing company automatically resolves legal issues — the assessment always depends on how the work is actually performed. However, a good provider can organize the relationship properly, ensure team continuity, match the right skills to the project, and take responsibility for the agreed scope of services. That is value that simply having a specialist available does not provide.

Good outsourcing gives clients access to skills that might otherwise take months to find, the ability to scale teams quickly, and a partner who solves problems rather than simply billing for time. For years, conversations about IT outsourcing began with three questions: how many specialists, by when, and at what rate? Today, there should be a fourth: what does the client actually gain beyond the hours worked? If the only difference between two proposals is the hourly rate, it is difficult to call the relationship a partnership.

Satya Nadella received an award for technological achievements, while Microsoft was suspended from the PERM program on the very same day. Poland’s IT industry has access to the same specialists it had a year ago. What has changed is that both inspectors and clients are increasingly asking who is truly accountable for their work.

I am curious to hear your thoughts: are Polish companies primarily buying IT specialists today, or are they buying accountability for solving a specific problem? Or does the lowest rate still win in practice?

Sources

Channel Dive, Microsoft’s PERM suspension and Satya Nadella’s medal:
https://www.channeldive.com/news/trump-administration-crackdown-it-services-outsourcing-microsoft/832546/

Microsoft, statement on visa-related questions:
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2026/10/08/microsoft-comment-on-recent-immigration-questions/

CIO Dive, Microsoft’s investment in 6,000 engineers:
https://www.ciodive.com/news/microsoft-25b-embed-engineers/824392/

Fortune, Lightcast data on forward deployed engineers:
https://fortune.com/2026/09/03/forward-deployed-engineers-fast-growing-six-figure-silicon-valley-job-integrate-ai-with-customers-tech-careers-palantir/

PIT.pl, PIP data on complaints and orders to change contracts:
https://www.pit.pl/aktualnosci/reforma-pip-ponad-1300-skarg-na-umowy-cywilnoprawne-inspektorzy-przeksztalcaja-te-kontrakty-w-etaty

CRN, PIP interpretation concerning B2B contracts at an IT company:
https://crn.pl/aktualnosci/przelomowa-decyzja-pip-dla-firmy-it-ws-pracy-na-b2b/

Outsource Accelerator, ISG study:
https://news.outsourceaccelerator.com/isg-insurance-bpo-contract-renewals