The first StrictlyVC of 2026 hits SF on April 30. Tickets are going fast. Register now.
Founder Summit ticket savings of up to $190 end June 26. Join 1,000+ founders and VCs for all-day bootcamp. REGISTER NOW.
Latest
AI
Amazon
Apps
Biotech & Health
Climate
Cloud Computing
Commerce
Crypto
Enterprise
EVs
Fintech
Fundraising
Gadgets
Gaming
Google
Government & Policy
Hardware
Instagram
Layoffs
Media & Entertainment
Meta
Microsoft
Privacy
Robotics
Security
Social
Space
Startups
TikTok
Transportation
Venture
Staff
Events
Startup Battlefield
StrictlyVC
Newsletters
Podcasts
Videos
Partner Content
TechCrunch Brand Studio
Crunchboard
Contact Us
Whether AI is already replacing jobs is the subject of fierce debate.
Tech layoffs hit their highest single month total in years in May, and AI was the most-cited reason, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
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.
“The rationale given for lots of layoffs is consistently AI, and specifically they’ll say AI with respect to code; they’ll say one engineer could do the job of however many engineers in the past,” said Asher Bantock, SignalFire’s head of research. “What we’re seeing on the ground is a little inconsistent with that.”
SignalFire’s 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.
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’s latest “State of Talent Report.”
In fact, engineers comprised 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. This is a significant jump from 2019, when engineers represented only 46% of new recruits, according to the report.
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’s data shows.
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’s data shows that engineering headcount is growing faster than most other job functions in tech.
While 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, the company’s own head of economics, Peter McCrory, told TechCrunch in March that he had not yet seen any significant AI-driven effects on the workforce.
Said McCrory at the time: “There’s at least no larger material difference in unemployment rates” between workers who use Claude for the “most central task of their job in automated ways” — like technical writers, data entry clerks, and software engineers — and workers in jobs less exposed to AI that require “physical interaction and dexterity with the real world.”
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang went further still, outright rejecting the theory that AI will replace engineers. “Somebody said that AI is going to destroy all of the software engineering jobs,” Huang said in an interview 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, “software engineers are busier than ever,” he said.
Huang added that while agents are writing code near instantaneously, they are constantly pushing engineers to generate “the next idea.”
For now at least, it seems that armed with AI, engineering has become a classic example of the Jevons paradox — the idea that greater efficiency doesn’t 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: “They’re suddenly a lot more productive, and there’s endless work for them to do.”
Topics
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Marina Temkin is a venture capital and startups reporter at TechCrunch. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she wrote about VC for PitchBook and Venture Capital Journal. Earlier in her career, Marina was a financial analyst and earned a CFA charterholder designation.
You can contact or verify outreach from Marina by emailing marina.temkin@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at +1 347-683-3909 on Signal.
Last chance to save up to $190 on TechCrunch Founder Summit. Join 1,000+ founders and VCs at all stages for real-world scaling insights and connections that move the needle.
Savings end June 26, 11:59 p.m. PT.
HaloBraid raises $7M from Seven Seven Six to end the six-hour hair salon appointment
WhatsApp gets new chief as Meta taps India’s CRED founder Kunal Shah and invests $900M in startup
Beyond Siri: Here are the practical AI features coming to your iPhone in iOS 27
Every new iOS 27 feature that’s worth knowing about
Aura’s impressive e-ink photo frame doesn’t even look digital
The US says ASML’s top chip tool may be in China, but how?
The 11 standout startups from YC’s Demo Day, according to VCs
© 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC.
Leave a Reply