AI wasn't supposed to kill engineering jobs, but data suggests they're thriving

The debate over whether AI is already replacing jobs rages on. Tech layoffs reached a multi-year high in May, with AI cited as the primary reason, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. However, researchers at venture firm SignalFire found that hiring data tells a different story.

Software engineering, theoretically, is the field most vulnerable to automation due to the rapid adoption of AI-powered coding tools. Asher Bantock, SignalFire's head of research, said, "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." However, SignalFire's analysis of millions of employees across over 80 million companies suggests that engineering was the most resilient job function in 2025. Instead of focusing on layoffs, 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." 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 jump from 2019, when engineers represented only 46% of new recruits. 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. 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.

However, 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. McCrory said, "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 rejected 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.