As part of a broader organizational restructure, Walmart is laying off or relocating about 1,000 employees across its global technology and product teams, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Impacted staff are being asked to relocate to the retailer’s Bentonville, Arkansas, or Northern California offices, per the source. Some positions are being updated to reflect how work is being done and some teams are being combined where it makes sense, per an internal memo to employees from Global Chief Technology Officer and Chief Development Officer Suresh Kumar and Executive Vice President of AI Acceleration, Product and Design Daniel Danker on Tuesday. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
“Some work has been consolidated, and some roles have been eliminated, and we know that has a real impact on people and teams,” Kumar and Danker said in the memo. “We’re supporting those affected with care, including helping them explore other opportunities within Walmart where possible.”
Danker joined Walmart in July of 2025 after serving in a leadership role at Instacart. The executive was brought on to support some of the retailer’s AI efforts, which is a key focus of new Walmart Inc. CEO John Furner’s strategy. However, the latest role relocations and cuts are not specifically related to AI, according to Retail Dive’s source.
A year ago, Kumar and Furner — who was the CEO of Walmart’s U.S. division at the time — announced that the company would streamline its global tech and Walmart U.S. operations teams, impacting about 1,500 roles.
The latest operational restructure is part of Walmart’s broader globalization efforts. Kumar and Danker in the memo highlighted the teams’ work over the past year to build in a more unified way, allowing them to scale globally and reduce duplication.
“In some cases, we’ve had different teams working on similar problems,” the executives said. “That’s why today we’ve made changes to simplify how the work is organized, make ownership clearer, and better align roles to the work and skills we need going forward.”
