Employment among early-career software developers fell 20%, even as jobs for older developers expanded, according to Stanford University's 2026 AI index. U.S. software-development job postings have risen nearly 15% since February 2025, when Anthropic launched Claude Code. The labor market is split: demand is recovering, but opportunities are moving toward experienced workers and AI-related roles.
The entry-level pipeline
Stanford University's index found that employment in AI-exposed fields among people ages 22 to 25 had fallen 16% since generative AI rose. Early-career software developers saw a 20% decline, while older developer roles expanded. For people trying to enter the profession, who gets access to new opportunities is now a central issue.
Sneha Puri, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, said employers must keep routes into software development open. "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." Puri also advised students to 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."
Indeed Hiring Lab data show senior positions made up 71% of the increase in software-development postings between May 2025 and May 2026. Job titles mentioning AI made up 37% of the increase. More postings, then, haven't brought an even recovery across experience levels.
More code, different work
GitHub reported in October that one in three "pull requests" involved an AI agent, up from fewer than one in 10 a year earlier. Pull requests are proposals by collaborating coders to change project code. "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 company said.
GitHub hasn't confirmed claims from some AI experts that AI-written code across its platform has passed the halfway mark. In 2023, the software-development platform said AI was close to writing half of all code on projects where it was available. GitHub leaders have also said that 80% or more of code could eventually be written by AI as developers get more comfortable with the tools.
Companies still need developers to oversee AI work, refine products and help clients fit technology into daily operations, Puri said. Demand is shifting toward people who can assess AI-generated code and problems, then connect tools to an organization's wider technology systems. Eric Kutcher, North America chair at McKinsey, said on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" that developers who work with AI remain in high demand as companies produce more code.
GitHub has warned that growing code volumes bring 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.
Recovery remains uneven
The rise in postings follows a steep drop from a 2022 hiring peak, when technology companies pulled back after a pandemic-era hiring surge. McKinsey Global Institute research says the earlier decline wasn't solely an AI story. Even after the recovery, software-development postings remained about 27.5% below their pre-pandemic level, according to Indeed Hiring Lab.
An analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data by economist Steve Rattner found that software developers recorded positive employment growth from May 2023 to May 2025. Growth matched that for all occupations and trailed the pace for traditionally blue-collar jobs associated with building AI data centers. Researchers at Anthropic said people remain necessary to oversee automation and provide user input, but cautioned that "it is by no means certain that this pattern will persist into the future."
An August report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projected software-developer employment would grow 10% from 2025 to 2035, from about 1.72 million to 1.89 million jobs, adding roughly 174,700 positions. The figures describe occupational demand and entry-level access; they don't establish a transfer of national sovereignty or a demographic change.