Employment among early-career software developers fell 20% as older developer roles expanded, according to Stanford University's 2026 AI index. The wider job market tells a less dramatic story: U.S. software-development postings have risen nearly 15% since February 2025, when Anthropic launched Claude Code, even as overall postings fell. Recovery, yes. But not everyone is sharing in the gains.
Who Gets the Jobs
Senior positions accounted for 71% of the increase in software-development postings between May 2025 and May 2026, according to Indeed Hiring Lab. Job titles mentioning AI made up 37% of that increase. The hiring rebound favors experienced people who can assess AI-generated code and connect tools with an organization's wider technology systems.
Sneha Puri, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, said companies still need developers to oversee AI work, refine products and help clients integrate technology into daily operations. Demand is growing for workers who help businesses apply AI tools, not just build them, she said. The job isn't simply disappearing; its shape is changing, and more opportunity goes to workers who already have experience.
Puri also warned employers not to let entry-level routes wither: "Today's entry-level talent becomes tomorrow's senior experts. If employers don't build those pipelines now, they're not going to have senior talent they need 10 years down the line." That warning accompanies the 20% decline among early-career software developers. The pipeline is under pressure now, even as employers say they'll need its graduates later.
More Code, More Oversight
In October, GitHub reported that one in three "pull requests"—proposals by collaborating coders to change project code—involved an AI agent, up from fewer than one in 10 a year earlier. GitHub said: "If that pace holds, within the next two years, most of the code pushed to GitHub could be written by an agent. Much of it may never be fully read by a human." The forecast is striking, coming from a software development platform whose own figures track how widely these tools are spreading.
GitHub has also said people must keep pace with AI-generated code to monitor its risks. "As the amount of code grows, we must prevent more exposures and reduce the human effort required by those that remain, or else the volume of vulnerabilities introduced will become untenable," it wrote. More automated output still leaves people responsible for watching what the systems produce.
Eric Kutcher, North America chair at McKinsey, said in a recent interview on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street": "It wasn't that long ago that we were reading the headline that there will be no more need for software developers." Developers who work with AI remain in high demand as companies produce more code, he said. "We're seeing much more growth in the places we thought we were gonna see the biggest displacement," Kutcher said.
Recovery With a Long Shadow
The rise in postings doesn't erase the earlier contraction. McKinsey Global Institute research says the decline in software-development jobs wasn't solely an AI story: automation was happening, but the rebound followed a steep fall from a 2022 hiring peak, when technology companies pulled back after a pandemic-era hiring surge. Indeed Hiring Lab data show software-development postings still stood about 27.5% below their pre-pandemic level.
A recent analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data by economist Steve Rattner found positive employment growth for software developers from May 2023 to May 2025. Growth matched the pace across all occupations and trailed the pace for traditionally blue-collar jobs associated with building AI data centers. Researchers at Anthropic found that people remain necessary to oversee automation and provide user input, while cautioning that "it is by no means certain that this pattern will persist into the future."
Puri said students should learn AI tools while keeping up other skills. "Being able to use AI in your work and improve your efficiency is a great place to start," she said. "But communication, interpersonal skills and leadership are also really important." An August report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projected software-developer employment would grow 10% from 2025 to 2035, rising from about 1.72 million to 1.89 million jobs and adding roughly 174,700 positions. A projection of more jobs doesn't answer who gets the first chance to enter the profession.