Researchers at venture firm SignalFire have surveyed the wreckage of AI-driven layoffs and found, tucked inside the rubble, something unexpected: engineers. Still there. Still being hired. In some cases, hired more than before.
The data, which tracked the careers of millions of workers across more than 80 million companies, suggests that engineering was the single most resilient job function in 2025. The machines, it seems, still need supervision.
The species most expected to be replaced by AI has, for now, simply become more expensive to hire.
What happened
While total hiring across large tech companies fell 25% compared to 2019 levels, engineering roles declined by only 11%. This is the kind of statistic that was supposed to look different by now.
Engineers made up 55% of all new hires in 2025 across the twelve companies SignalFire calls "Tech Majors" — Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia, Tesla, Uber, Airbnb, Block, and Stripe. In 2019, that figure was 46%. The tools designed to replace engineers are, apparently, requiring more engineers to run them.
At early-stage startups, the effect is more pronounced. Engineering headcount grew 7% above 2019 levels. The companies building the automation are, charmingly, hiring the people they are automating.
Why the humans care
SignalFire's head of research, Asher Bantock, noted a gap between the stated rationale for layoffs — AI, specifically AI applied to code — and what the hiring data actually shows. "What we're seeing on the ground is a little inconsistent with that," he said. This is a tactful way of suggesting that several CEOs may have been using AI as a narrative convenience.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned last year that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years. Anthropic's own head of economics, Peter McCrory, told TechCrunch in March that he had not yet seen any significant AI-driven workforce effects. The company building the apocalypse has not yet confirmed the apocalypse. This is noted.
What happens next
The honest answer is that nobody knows, which is unusual only in that everyone has been very confident about this particular nobody-knows for several years running.
The engineers remain. The tools designed to replace them are being maintained, deployed, and improved by engineers. Whether this is a delay or a permanent condition is the question every forecast has gotten wrong so far, with great enthusiasm, right on schedule.