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Whether AI is already replacing jobs is the subject of fierce debate.<\/p>\n
Tech layoffs hit their\u00a0highest single month<\/a>\u00a0total in years in May, and AI was the most-cited reason, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.<\/p>\n Software engineering, in theory, is the professional field most vulnerable to automation, given the rapid adoption of AI-powered coding tools. However, researchers at venture firm SignalFire say the hiring data tells a different story.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rationale given for lots of layoffs is consistently AI, and specifically they\u2019ll say AI with respect to code; they\u2019ll say one engineer could do the job of however many engineers in the past,\u201d said Asher Bantock, SignalFire\u2019s head of research. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing on the ground is a little inconsistent with that.\u201d<\/p>\n SignalFire\u2019s analysis, which tracked the careers of millions of employees across more than 80 million companies, suggests that engineering was the most resilient job function in 2025. Instead of focusing on layoffs, which are difficult to track because people often delay updating their employment status after job cuts, SignalFire examined hiring data as a more accurate indicator of real-time workforce trends.<\/p>\n While total hiring across large tech companies dropped 25% compared to 2019 levels, engineering roles saw a much smaller decline of just 11%, according to SignalFire\u2019s latest \u201cState of Talent Report<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, engineers comprised 55% of all new hires in 2025 across the 12 companies SignalFire classifies as \u201cTech Majors\u201d \u2014 Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia, Tesla, Uber, Airbnb, Block, and Stripe. This is a significant jump from 2019, when engineers represented only 46% of new recruits, according to the report.<\/p>\n The continued need for engineers was even more evident at early-stage startups, which collectively brought on 7% more engineers in 2025 than they did in 2019, SignalFire\u2019s data shows.<\/p>\n If AI were truly substituting for engineering talent, Bantock argued, engineering hiring would be the first to fall amid the current tech hiring contraction. Instead, SignalFire\u2019s data shows that engineering headcount is growing faster than most other job functions in tech.<\/p>\n While Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned last year that AI could wipe out half<\/a> of all entry-level white-collar jobs and push unemployment as high as 20% within five years, the company\u2019s own head of economics, Peter McCrory, told TechCrunch<\/a> in March that he had not yet seen any significant AI-driven effects on the workforce.<\/p>\n Said McCrory at the time: \u201cThere\u2019s at least no larger material difference in unemployment rates\u201d between workers who use Claude for the \u201cmost central task of their job in automated ways\u201d \u2014 like technical writers, data entry clerks, and software engineers \u2014 and workers in jobs less exposed to AI that require \u201cphysical interaction and dexterity with the real world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang went further still, outright rejecting the theory that AI will replace engineers. \u201cSomebody said that AI is going to destroy all of the software engineering jobs,\u201d Huang said in an interview<\/a> at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in April. He then argued the opposite is true. Now that all engineers at Nvidia are using agentic AI, \u201csoftware engineers are busier than ever,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Huang added that while agents are writing code near instantaneously, they are constantly pushing engineers to generate \u201cthe next idea.\u201d<\/p>\n For now at least, it seems that armed with AI, engineering has become a classic example of the Jevons paradox \u2014 the idea that greater efficiency doesn\u2019t reduce demand for a resource; it increases it, because the work expands to fill the new capacity. As Bantock said of engineering talent in this moment: \u201cThey\u2019re suddenly a lot more productive, and there\u2019s endless work for them to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n