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Tech Hiring Reflects Flatter, Leaner Companies
By Dave RaffoShareshare

According to venture capital firm SignalFire, tech companies have shifted from being built for abundance to being rebuilt for leverage over the past five years.

That shift is reflected in SignalFire’s State of Tech Talent Report 2026. SignalFire analyzed data points on hiring trends, geographic movements, and more from major tech companies, early-stage startups, leading AI labs and computer science graduates. It found tech companies are flatter and leaner with senior-heavy engineering cores and support structures stripped out around it. Organizations are cutting coordination layers, shattering the traditional career ladder, and forcing a massive shift from craft specialization to systems leverage.

Highlights:

  • While tech hiring overall has stalled at 75% of its pre-pandemic baseline, engineering has held up better than nearly every other function at large tech companies.
  • Hiring at the large tech companies is running at 25% below the 2019 baseline (on a trailing-12-month basis), the lowest level since the huge 2023 crash.
  • Software engineers now account for 55% of all hiring, up from 46% in 2019.
  • New grad/entry-level hiring is down roughly 65% at the major tech companies and around 76% at early-stage startups compared to 2019.
  • Top computer science grads in 2025 are twice as likely to call themselves a founder compared to the 2022 class, and 45% less likely to land a job at a major tech firm.
  • ‎Engineers are being hired faster and turning over more slowly than any other corporate function, posting a low 9% attrition rate, compared to 13% for sales and design. Even during recent layoffs at large companies, engineers accounted for less than 30% of those let go, even though they made up a larger share of the workforce.
  • AI/ML engineers have grown by 39% and research engineers by 28% since the 2022 launch of ChatGPT.
  • Sales engineers are up by 11% and forward-deployed engineers more than 30% while cybersecurity roles only grew by 3%.
  • Front-end engineer roles are down 25%, the steepest decline among engineers as roles centered on specific platforms have decreased.

Read the full report: SignalFire's State of Tech Talent Report - 2026