📰 Key Takeaways

Despite ongoing tech layoffs with companies citing AI replacing workers as justification, new data reveals engineering roles are actually the most resilient jobs in tech.

Venture capital firm SignalFire tracked over 80 million companies and millions of employee career records to find: overall hiring at large tech firms in 2025 dropped 25% compared to 2019, but engineering positions declined only 11%—far lower than other roles. More notably, across the 12 “tech giants”—Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia, Tesla, Uber, Airbnb, Block, Stripe—engineers made up 55% of new hires in 2025, up from 46% in 2019. The trend is even more pronounced at early-stage startups, where engineering hires in 2025 exceeded 2019 levels by 7%.

SignalFire’s research lead Asher Bantock points out that if AI were truly replacing engineers, engineering hiring numbers should have been the first to crash—but the real-world data shows the exact opposite. Anthropic’s chief economist Peter McCrory also acknowledges that no significant AI impact on the job market has been observed so far—whether for tech writers, data entry clerks, or software engineers heavily using AI tools, their unemployment rates show no meaningful difference compared to occupations with low AI exposure.

💬 JudyAI Lab Perspective

The narrative that “AI is replacing workers” has been rampant amid layoff waves, but SignalFire’s actual data from tracking 80 million companies tells a completely different story.

Among the 12 tech giants, engineers made up 55% of new hires in 2025—up from 46% in 2019. Early-stage startups saw engineering hires even exceed 2019 levels by 7%. What caught our attention: Anthropic’s chief economist Peter McCrory noted that even for roles heavily using AI tools—tech writers, data entry clerks, software engineers—their unemployment rates show no significant difference compared to occupations with low AI exposure. This suggests AI’s current role is more about “amplifying engineer output” than “reducing engineer demand.” For us AI builders, this is a clear positioning signal: those who know how to leverage AI tools will only become more competitive, not less.

One thing worth doing right now: audit your workflow for repetitive tasks that can be handed off to AI, and save your judgment for areas where machines still fall short.

📅 Source Info

🔗 Further Reading