Friday’s U.S. jobs report was surprisingly strong. That’s not the only job market that’s doing better than expected.
Tech job numbers will rebound sharply in 2026, challenging the popular narrative that AI is sweeping away engineering roles.
The number of software engineering job openings is more than 67,000, the highest level in three years, according to data from technology hiring analytics firm TrueUp. The number of listings has roughly doubled since the bottom in mid-2023.
The most impressive number for me is that the number of open positions has increased by about 30% so far this year. Because TrueUp tracks employment at technology companies (rather than all types of companies that need tech workers), the impact of AI should be felt even more strongly in this data.
“A lot of the talk about ‘AI replacing engineers’ is not based on job data, at least not yet,” TrueUp founder Amit Taylor told me this week.
Check out this chart showing open software engineering roles around the world. This chart starts in late 2022, when ChatGPT debuted and started the generative AI revolution. Given all the hand-wringing around AI these days, this line is moving in the opposite direction you might expect.
Open a software engineering role at a technology company true up
The recovery follows a sharp correction in 2022 and early 2023, when technology companies cut hiring after overextending during the pandemic boom. Rising interest rates and a shift toward profitability have forced companies to freeze hiring and cut staff. Jobs are now coming back as companies invest heavily in AI, which ironically requires a lot of engineers.
TrueUp’s dataset tracks more than 260,000 open positions across 9,000 technology companies and focuses on startups and publicly traded technology companies rather than the economy as a whole. In that world, demand for software engineers remains strong, while AI-related roles are “exploding,” Taylor said.
So why does the situation feel so dire for some candidates, especially recent graduates? Entry-level technology jobs are still available, but the pool of available talent is now much larger.
“A lot more people are pursuing computer science,” TrueUp founder Amit Taylor told me this week. “Jobs are not gone, but the competition for them is dramatically higher than it was five years ago.”
How will the technology job market evolve as AI permeates the economy?
“AI may completely compress some roles, or it may overutilize talented engineers and cause companies to compete even harder for those roles,” Taylor said. “Demand for top talent is strong right now, but it may remain so for some time before the situation suddenly reverses.”
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