There has been recent debate in the tech industry over whether AI has begun replacing white-collar jobs. According to a recent study by venture capital firm SignalFire, cited by TechCrunch, software engineering roles have not significantly contracted due to the adoption of AI tools; instead, they remain one of the most stable hiring priorities for tech companies.
Large tech companies experienced smaller declines.
SignalFire has tracked the career movements of millions of employees across over 80 million companies. Compared to layoff data, the firm places greater emphasis on hiring changes, which it views as a better indicator of real-time labor market trends.
Its latest talent report shows that overall hiring at major tech companies decreased by 25% in 2025 compared to 2019, but engineering roles declined by only 11%. Among the 12 “tech giants” tracked by SignalFire, engineers made up 55% of new hires that year, up from 46% in 2019.
- Overall hiring decreased by 25% compared to 2019.
- Engineering job postings decreased by only 11%.
- The proportion of engineers among newly hired employees has increased to 55%.
The startup is still hiring more engineers.
This trend is more pronounced among early-stage startups. SignalFire data shows that these companies hired 7% more engineers in 2025 than in 2019.
Asher Bantock, Head of Research at SignalFire, said that many companies have cited AI—particularly code generation tools—as a reason for layoffs, claiming that a single engineer can now accomplish what previously required multiple people. However, actual hiring data suggests this claim does not fully align with on-the-ground realities.
He believes that if AI were already replacing engineering talent on a large scale, engineering roles should have been the first to decline during the current phase of slowed hiring in the tech industry. However, in reality, the growth rate of engineering teams remains faster than that of most other functions.
Executives remain divided in their judgment.
Previously, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI could disrupt half of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years and push unemployment rates to 20%. However, in March of this year, Anthropic’s Head of Economic Research, Peter McCrory, told TechCrunch that he has not yet observed a significant impact of AI on the labor market.
At the time, McCrory stated that there was no significant difference in unemployment rates between roles where Claude was used for automating core work tasks and those with less exposure to AI. The reported high-exposure roles included technical writing, data entry, and software engineering.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has also publicly opposed the notion that "AI will replace software engineers." In an interview at Stanford Graduate School of Business in April this year, he stated that as NVIDIA engineers increasingly use agent-based AI, software engineers are actually busier than before, because faster code writing enables teams to move on to new ideas and tasks.
Based on current data, AI appears to be enhancing engineer productivity rather than directly reducing job numbers. The report cites views suggesting that, after improving efficiency, companies have not decreased their demand for engineering talent; instead, they have been able to take on more development tasks.