--- title: "The Tech Hiring Paradox: Layoffs Are Real – But So Is Growth | CoderPad" description: "Learn more about The Tech Hiring Paradox: Layoffs Are Real – But So Is Growth from CoderPad." canonical: "https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/the-tech-hiring-paradox-layoffs-are-real-but-so-is-growth/" last_modified: "2026-04-15 16:12:55" --- [Back to blog](https://coderpad.io/blog/) # The Tech Hiring Paradox: Layoffs Are Real – But So Is Growth November 17, 2025 5 Minute Read By Amanda Richardson [Hiring Developers](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/) The headlines on tech layoffs feel brutal. Amazon, Accenture, Intel, Microsoft, Meta, Mozilla, and more have all announced workforce reductions, and decisions like these may not be over. And yet – despite how awful this is for everyone impacted – the narrative that ‘tech hiring is dead’ or ‘AI is already coming for your jobs’ is not the whole story. In fact, hiring may be slower but it’s not nothing. It’s a much more nuanced picture. This is what I see: 1. A return to sustainable tech hiring practices after pandemic-era excess 2. A shift in the skills and profiles companies are seeking 3. Increased investment in junior and AI-proficient technical talent 4. Companies recognizing that AI-augmented developers represent better ROI, driving more hiring, not less 5. An explosion of newly viable product possibilities, thanks to AI, creating demand for people to build them – and, in turn, driving more hiring Let’s get into it. A Look at the Actual Data Over the past five years, we have – without question – seen tech layoffs spike. It’s worth noting that these aren’t just developer roles; they’re jobs across all functions at “tech companies”. In 2023, according to Trueup.io, the number was 430K people impacted; last year, it was 240K. In 2025, the number is projected to reach just over 200K. These are real people and real families, and I don’t – for a second – discount the enormous disruption and uncertainty these layoffs have certainly caused them. But [as many have noted](https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/layoffs-labor-market-92a069c6?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqcs77vFvyugjHRwtxWWORA4uFUjZmITOXIrI9sCYDn83BIzDPTmvla5QMZs-ps%3D&gaa_ts=6914387a&gaa_sig=eP4B-6h1AFy1v0KohQJbwOQkVZliSxA1tZfD0tGOd_Y9U3uU-gASoc06VDJrE8cYpzOr09elBwCVKMm9wjfABw%3D%3D), companies are course-correcting after a lengthy period of over hiring and labor hoarding: hiring and holding on to high-value, high-cost workers, a common practice in 2020 and 2021. In fact, [some companies](https://news.crunchbase.com/layoffs/analysis-big-tech-pandemic-amzn-meta/) “nearly doubled their headcount between 2019 and 2022” as a result. Today’s rebalancing, as The Wall Street Journal observed, may be spurred by multiple factors: the promise of what AI might be able to do in the future, weak demand, and economic volatility. As of [early November](https://www.trueup.io/job-trend), there are nearly 240K open tech jobs, a decline of roughly 50 percent from tech’s peak and an increase of 45 percent from the industry’s low two years ago. That’s not zero. That’s a painful normalization after an unsustainable spike. It tracks with what we’re seeing at CoderPad. When I look at our own data on technical interviewing activity, comparing this time last year to today, we’re seeing usage trending substantially upward, if we compare 2023 to today. As you can see, companies are still investing in technical talent. And they’re doing so incredibly intentionally. Companies Are Reshaping Hiring Based on AI (And That’s Not Bad) AI isn’t decimating developer jobs so much as it’s transforming them in three fundamental ways: AI is changing the skills teams need, not eliminating teams entirely As organizations grow, they’re actively seeking people who can work effectively with AI tools, know how to leverage these capabilities, and bring AI-native thinking to their work. This is driving demand for different skill sets and profiles than we saw five years ago. Companies that relied on basic technical assessments are realizing they need better solutions to evaluate these evolving capabilities. AI is improving developer ROI – and, in turn, their value to companies Think about it this way: if a developer used to ship 10 product features a year, and AI makes them 30% more effective, that same person now delivers 13 features annually – for the same cost. That’s not a reason to hire fewer developers. That’s a reason to invest more in developer talent because you’re getting better returns. Research from [companies like GitHub](https://github.blog/news-insights/research/survey-reveals-ais-impact-on-the-developer-experience/)) shows that developers using AI coding tools are seeing measurable productivity improvements, particularly in reducing time spent on repetitive tasks and code reviews. And we’re seeing this driving an increased demand for developers – both internally at CoderPad and with our customers. AI is opening the aperture on what we can build today Features and products that would have taken years to develop – or had been completely impractical to invest in – are suddenly achievable. This isn’t theoretical for us. At my company, we’re experiencing this firsthand: so many ideas that were once in the “someday/maybe/if we have resources”column are now viable. We need more talented people to bring these possibilities to life. People power is critical – and I assure you, we’re not the only company who sees that! Smart Companies Are Hiring For AI-Savvy Developers The macro data tells one story. But let me share what I’m hearing directly from customers and prospects in the past month: [Shopify](https://techtalent.ca/shopify-to-hire-1000-engineering-interns-for-2025/), for example, is expanding its intern and junior developer program by 20x, from 50 hires two years ago to approximately one thousand. Why such aggressive growth in entry-level talent? Three reasons: there’s an enormous amount to build, they recognize they need to invest in junior talent today to develop senior talent tomorrow, and they know younger, AI-native workers will bring fresh perspectives and skills to their culture and processes. Despite their layoffs, Meta, as you’ve probably heard, is on a significant hiring push. And Amazon currently has thousands of [software engineer positions](https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/amazon-software-engineer-jobs) open, also going against the Amazon headlines. Walmart is hiring aggressively for developers. Take Heart – And Action The full picture helps people make informed decisions about their hiring strategies, assumptions about where the market is heading, and their careers. If you’re a developer: the skills you have and continue to build matter. Particularly if you’re learning to work effectively with AI tools, you’re making yourself more valuable, not less. Companies need you. If you’re a hiring manager: look at your actual business needs and the ROI of technical talent in an AI-augmented world. The math may surprise you. And if you need to hire more devs, call me. 😉 If you’re a junior developer: know that companies are actively seeking AI-native talent who can bring new approaches. Your fresh perspective has value. And if you’ve been laid off: this is painful,and I’m sorry. Keep going. The data suggests opportunities are still out there. The market is shifting, not disappearing. The question isn’t whether technical hiring is dying. It’s how we’re preparing for the kind of technical hiring that’s emerging. Ready to start modernizing your technical hiring for the AI-era? CoderPad enables AI-aware, realistic assessments that measure how candidates actually work with modern AI tools—so you get stronger signal, fairer evaluations, and faster decisions without encouraging “no-AI” test behavior. Get in touch with our team [here](https://coderpad.io/sales/). ## Subscribe for more CoderPad insights ## Trending Articles Previous slide Next slide [Hiring Developers ## Hot Takes on Hiring: “AI Fluency” Is a Myth Our CEO, Amanda Richardson, and our Head of Product, Frank Hauben, can’t agree on anything else. We put Amanda and Frank on camera, handed them five spicy hot takes about AI in hiring, and told them not to sit on the fence. They sat on the fence anyway. Here’s what they actually fought about. Amanda […] Read the post](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/hot-takes-on-hiring-ai-fluency-is-a-myth/) [Hiring Developers ## 5 Unfiltered Takes on AI That Engineering Leaders Actually Believe We put a room full of senior engineering leaders together, took away the slides, added beer, and asked them to say the thing they’d never put in a LinkedIn post. No PR-approved talking points, no vendor gloss, just people who ship for a living telling the truth about what AI is doing inside their orgs […] Read the post](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/5-unfiltered-takes-on-ai-that-engineering-leaders-actually-believe/) [Hiring Developers ## Your Developer Interview Loop Is a Year Old. Is It Still Finding Your Best Candidates? A YC-backed founder called me last week with some good questions. His 20-person startup hadn’t hired an engineer in over a year. Now they’re opening reqs again, and instead of just dusting off the old loop, he wanted to understand how interviews had changed and if candidates were ready for AI interviews. His process — […] Read the post](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/your-developer-interview-loop-is-a-year-old-is-it-still-finding-your-best-candidates/) [Hiring Developers ## AI Fluency Is the New Technical Skill. Is Your Hiring Process Ready? Artificial intelligence has fundamentally changed software development. Developers are no longer working in isolation, writing every line of code from memory. AI has become part of the engineering workflow, helping developers brainstorm approaches, generate boilerplate code, and debug complex issues. The question isn’t whether engineers are using AI. It’s how effectively they’re using it. Hiring […] Read the post](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/ai-fluency-is-the-new-technical-skill-is-your-hiring-process-ready/) [Hiring Developers ## AI Didn’t Kill Entry Level Hiring. Bad Screening Did. For the last two years, the narrative has been loud, confident, and mostly wrong: AI is coming for entry level engineering jobs. The story goes something like this: If AI can write code, summarize docs, generate tests, and debug basic issues, why would companies still hire junior engineers? It sounds logical. It is also incomplete. […] Read the post](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/ai-didnt-kill-entry-level-hiring-bad-screening-did/) [Hiring Developers ## The Resume Is Dead. Most Teams Just Haven’t Admitted It Yet. Resumes made sense when applying for a job took real effort. That era is over. AI lets candidates apply to hundreds of roles in the time it once took to write a single cover letter. Employer-side AI systems process the flood. The result is a hiring funnel built almost entirely on artificial signals, where the […] Read the post](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/the-resume-is-dead-most-teams-just-havent-admitted-it-yet/) [Hiring Developers ## Is Your Technical Hiring Process Screening Out Great Engineers? The short answer: Many technical hiring processes are doing the latter. High-friction interview loops, live coding under observation, and AI-restrictive assessments are measuring interview performance, not job performance. The fix isn’t rebuilding from scratch — it’s auditing whether your process measures engineering capability or something else entirely. If you attended our recent webinar with CoderPad […] Read the post](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/is-your-technical-hiring-process-screening-out-great-engineers/) [Hiring Developers ## Junior Developers Are Your Strategic Advantage—If You Can Actually Evaluate Them Campus recruiting season arrives the same way every year: hundreds of applications, a narrow window, and a process that was never designed for this much volume or this much pressure. Meanwhile, the definition of “technical skill” is actively shifting—AI-polished resumes have made traditional screening nearly meaningless, and the skills that predict junior developer success look […] Read the post](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/junior-developers-are-your-strategic-advantage-if-you-can-actually-evaluate-them/) [Hiring Developers ## Your Hiring Process Is Losing You Top Talent. Before They Ever Interview! Here’s a hard truth most TA leaders don’t want to admit: your hiring process is screening for the wrong thing. Not skills. Not judgment. Not potential. It’s screening for the ability to interview well. And those two things have almost nothing to do with each other. We sat down with recruiting experts Cammas Freeman, Phil […] Read the post](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/your-hiring-process-is-losing-you-top-talent-before-they-ever-interview/) [Hiring Developers ## CoderPad Uses CoderPad to Hire Engineers. Here’s How. When we opened our latest software engineer role, we had 100 applications within 24 hours. By the end of the first week, without running a single ad, we had 160 candidates in the pipeline. That’s a lot of signal to sort through. And it forced us to be honest about something every engineering leader eventually […] Read the post](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/coderpad-uses-coderpad-to-hire-engineers-heres-how/) [Hiring Developers ## Is Your Technical Hiring Process Built for the AI Era? Find Out With a New Quiz. AI didn’t just change how engineers build software. It changed what it means to hire one. The tools engineers use every day — AI coding assistants, prompt-driven debugging, multi-model workflows — are now fundamental to how modern development teams operate. According to our State of Tech Hiring 2026 Report, 82% of developers find generative AI […] Read the post](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/is-your-technical-hiring-process-built-for-the-ai-era-find-out-with-a-new-quiz/) [Hiring Developers ## In the AI Era, Shopify Is Investing in Junior Engineers—Not Cutting Them We spoke with Farhan Thawar, VP and Head of Engineering at Shopify, about why the company 10x’d its internship program, what AI-native hiring really looks like, and the three-part framework reshaping how technical talent gets evaluated. The conventional wisdom goes something like this: AI is coming for developers, and the first casualties will be the […] Read the post](https://coderpad.io/blog/hiring-developers/in-the-ai-era-shopify-is-investing-in-junior-engineers-not-cutting-them/) ## Hire with confidence. See why engineering teams trust CoderPad to evaluate developers with realistic, AI-ready hiring workflows. [Request a demo](https://coderpad.io/sales/)