Software engineering roles are the most resilient in the tech sector, even as layoffs hit record highs.
May saw the largest single month of job cuts in years, with artificial intelligence cited most often by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Logic suggests software engineering should be the first field to vanish under automation pressure. AI coding tools have spread quickly, yet data from venture firm SignalFire points elsewhere.
Asher Bantock, head of research at SignalFire, noted a disconnect between the narrative and reality. He said companies consistently cite AI as the cause for cuts, claiming one engineer can replace many. The actual hiring numbers do not match that claim.
The firm tracked millions of employees across more than 80 million companies. They avoided relying on layoff figures because people often delay updating their status after a job ends. Hiring data offered a clearer picture of real-time workforce trends.
Total hiring at large tech firms fell 25% compared to 2019 levels. Engineering roles saw a much smaller drop of just 11%, according to SignalFire’s latest State of Talent Report.
Engineers made up 55% of all new hires in 2025 across the 12 companies SignalFire classifies as Tech Majors. Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia, Tesla, Uber, Airbnb, Block, and Stripe fall into this group. This is a significant jump from 2019, when engineers represented only 46% of new recruits.
The need for engineers was even more evident at early-stage startups. They brought on 7% more engineers in 2025 than they did in 2019.
If AI were truly substituting for engineering talent, hiring for the role would be the first to fall amid the current tech contraction. Instead, engineering headcount is growing faster than most other job functions.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned last year that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and push unemployment as high as 20% within five years. Peter McCrory, the company’s head of economics, told TechCrunch in March that he had not yet seen any significant AI-driven effects on the workforce.
McCrory said there was no larger material difference in unemployment rates between workers who use Claude for central tasks like technical writing, data entry, and software engineering. He noted this compared to workers in jobs less exposed to AI that require physical interaction and dexterity with the real world.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang went further still, rejecting the theory that AI will replace engineers. He argued the opposite is true. Now that all engineers at Nvidia are using agentic AI, software engineers are busier than ever.
Huang added that while agents write code near instantaneously, they are constantly pushing engineers to generate the next idea.
For now, armed with AI, engineering has become a classic example of the Jevons paradox. Greater efficiency does not reduce demand for a resource; it increases it because the work expands to fill the new capacity. Bantock said of engineering talent in this moment: They’re suddenly a lot more productive, and there’s endless work for them to do.
