It seems like only yesterday when software developers were on top of the world, and anyone with basic coding experience could get multiple job offers.

This yesterday, however, was five to six years ago, and developers are no longer the kings and queens of the IT employment hill. Job titles like data engineer, machine learning engineer, and AI product manager have supplanted traditional software developers near the top of the heap as companies rush to adopt AI and cybersecurity professionals remain in high demand.

An example of the new reality comes from Salesforce. In February, CEO Marc Benioff told CNBC’s Squawk Boxthat 2025 will be the first year in the company’s 25-year history that it will not add more software engineers.

Months before, employment site Indeed noted that the number of job postings for software developers in July 2024 was at its lowest level in nearly four years. Many companies are still hiring developers, but not at the same rate as five years ago.

Downside of the peak

Although the AI hype cycle and continuing cybersecurity challenges are driving demand for experts in those fields, demand for developers seems to have softened or plateaued for other reasons during the past couple of years.

Peak demand for developers from early 2019 to early 2020 was driven in part by hype cycles catered to their strengths, as many companies gobbled up programmers to work on applications in support of clouding computing, mobile, and IoT strategies. When COVID hit in early 2020, the pandemic created additional demand for programmers who could support work-at-home scenarios, online shopping, and digital strategies aimed at transforming customer experiences for a changed world.

In those years, many companies hired more programmers than they would need over the long term, says Sarah Doughty, vice president of talent operations at IT recruiting firm TalentLab.

“There were a couple of years there where, if you could code and you weren’t, for lack of a more particular term, a complete donkey in the interview, you were getting offers, and you were probably getting a signing bonus,” she says.

Just as company executives are now “trend jumping” to hire AI experts, the same thing happened with software developers in 2019 and 2020, she says.

“If all of my competitors are rushing to hire even if I don’t have a good business rationale, I feel bad being that potentially I’m going to get left behind,” Doughty says. “At the end of the day, executives are human beings like the rest of us. They get FOMO like we do when our friends go out on a Saturday night without us.”

AI is not a replacement

Doughty discounts suggestions from some observers that low-code/no-code services and AI coding assistants have had a major impact on the developer employment market.

Low-code/no-code services have been around for about a decade, Doughty notes, yet developer demand shot up after their introduction. The services created a new class of citizen developers, but trained programmers were still needed for complex coding projects.

Meanwhile, some IT experts believe coding assistants will replace junior developers, but that doesn’t appear to be happening yet on a large scale, she says.

“I think we’ll come to the realization that AI is a great tool, but it’s not a replacement,” Doughty says. “The times we’ve seen companies try to replace human jobs entirely with AI, it’s actually been a bit of a disaster. There’s real hand-holding that needs to be done.”

One factor that is affecting demand for developers is a drop in the number of mobile apps being built, says Elin Thomasian, senior vice president for workforce strategy and consulting at TalentNeuron, a labor market intelligence firm.

“A slowdown in hiring developer roles for mobile apps reflects a lack of market demand —most major enterprises have already built their core apps, and the focus now is on AI-driven enhancements rather than new standalone applications,” she says.

Slowed but not stopped

This softening of the developer hiring market doesn’t mean hiring has stopped, she says. Demand for developers is simply growing at a slower rate than other IT roles.

Between 2023 and 2024, demand for software developers actually grew by 22%, according to TalentNeuron data. Several large companies, including Amazon, Google, Oracle, and Capital One, hired aggressively at the time.

But market growth for developers was dwarfed by the need for AL and machine learning engineers, with demand growing 148% for those roles over the same period. Many companies are also hiring for infrastructure and specialized engineering roles, Thomasian says.

While traditional software development remains essential, organizations are looking for candidates who have the skills to manage AI workflows, server firmware, and cloud-based infrastructures, she says.

“Companies are moving away from the classical software development role as it’s historically been defined and thinking more critically about the capabilities they really need,” she adds.

An evolution for developers

Other IT experts see the growth of AI as less of a threat to developers than a push to rethink the role.

With AI doing basic coding work, developers will be needed to think creatively about how to build software aligned with business needs, to check the code, and to ensure that AI-built apps can scale, says Sabrina Farmer, CTO at GitLab, provider of an AI-based DevSecOps platform.

“While AI is a powerful tool for boosting productivity and assisting with writing code, it won’t replace the need for skilled software engineers — it will shift the demand,” Farmer says. “The job will evolve as most jobs have evolved.”

Over the past decade, GitLab has never been able to hire as many developers as it has positions for, Farmer adds.

Prashanth Ram, CTO at IT training and engineer placement firm Smoothstack, agrees AI won’t eliminate the need for developers. Coding assistants are increasing developer productivity levels but not replacing them, he says.

Ram sees high demand for developers with specific domain knowledge such as healthcare, finance, and IT specialties like AI, security, and cloud architecture.

“What we’re seeing isn’t a plateau in demand, but rather an evolution in what makes a developer valuable,” he says. “The most successful developers today combine technical prowess with business understanding, communication skills, and adaptability to changing technologies.”

Demand will rebound

Meanwhile, the soft hiring market for developers isn’t likely to last, some hiring experts say. Even as AI automates repetitive coding tasks, developer who specialize in system-level optimization, AI-driven infrastructure, and security will be “indispensable,” says TalentNeuron’s Thomasian.

“Developers will evolve their skillsets to meet market needs, focusing on areas where AI is a partner in workflows than a straight swap-out replacement,” she adds. “The future of software development isn’t about eliminating jobs — it’s about shifting expertise to where it creates the most strategic advantage with human and AI skills matching up.”

TalentLab’s Doughty sees the market for developers rebounding as companies reach the limits of what AI can build.

“AI will undoubtedly augment current development roles but will not replace them,” she says. “Once leaders recognize this, I believe we’ll start to see a trend where developers are re-hired, but with the expectation that they’ll leverage AI tools to enhance their productivity and deliver results at a faster pace.”