The Tech Job Market Isn't Broken—It's Being Rebuilt: How Tech Careers are Reforming in 2025

Tech layoffs surge while AI engineers earn $300K+. The job market isn't broken—it's splitting into new categories that reward specialization over generalist skills.

What used to be a full-stack developer's dream job at a unicorn now pays less than an AI prompt engineer with two side hustles. Junior engineers can't get interviews, while LLM ops specialists are raking in stock options.

Something broke in the tech job market—but something else is being built.

At least 95,000 workers at U.S.-based tech companies were laid off in mass job cuts in 2024, and 150 companies laid off some 72,808 workers in 2025 so far. Yet simultaneously, prompt engineers earn salaries as high as six figures, with top earners reporting up to $199,775 annually. Meanwhile, AI engineer salaries climbed to $300,600 by March 2024, representing a dramatic shift from traditional tech compensation patterns.

This isn't a contradiction—it's a transformation.

We're witnessing the largest restructuring of tech talent demand since the dot-com era, but this time, it's not about market correction. It's about fundamental technological shift.

The paradox reveals the truth: hiring freezes and talent wars are happening simultaneously because tech jobs haven't disappeared—they've splintered into entirely new categories that companies are racing to fill.

In this issue of Brewed for Work, we will explore how the tech job market is undergoing its biggest transformation since the dot-com era. While 95,000+ workers faced layoffs in 2024, AI engineers command $300K+ salaries and prompt engineers earn six figures. We'll decode this paradox, examine the rise of hybrid roles, analyze global hiring trends, and provide actionable strategies for navigating a career landscape where specialization trumps generalization and AI literacy becomes essential.

So grab your favorite mug, and let's get brewing!

Today’s Issue at a Glance:

• From Mass Hiring to Mission Hiring

• The AI Premium Economy

• The Geopolitical Geography of Tech Hiring

• The Rise of Hybrid & Impact Role

• Preparing for the Fragmented Future

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The post-COVID tech hiring cycle has been a roller coaster of unprecedented highs and crushing lows. What started as a pandemic-driven digital transformation boom led to massive hiring sprees across Silicon Valley and beyond. Companies that had been conservative with headcount suddenly found themselves in desperate need of engineers to build remote-first infrastructure, e-commerce platforms, and digital services.

But the music stopped abruptly.

Over 300,000 tech jobs have been cut globally since 2022, with layoffs escalating dramatically in Q1 2023 when the sector saw a staggering record high of 167,600 employees losing their jobs. Major tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and IBM all contributed to this figure, with Amazon conducting the most rounds of layoffs with the highest number of employees laid off among global tech giants.

Yet here's where the narrative gets interesting: while traditional software engineering roles were being eliminated en masse, an entirely different hiring spree was quietly unfolding.

AI engineers have a projected job growth of 26 percent between 2023 and 2033, which is much faster than the average for all occupations (4 percent). The global Artificial Intelligence market size is expected to grow from $214.6 billion in 2024 to $1,339.1 billion in 2030 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 35.7%.

This isn't simply a correction or economic downturn—we're experiencing a fundamental realignment of what the tech industry values and needs.

The data reveals a stark truth: we're not in a tech hiring slowdown. We're in a tech role realignment, where yesterday's generalists are being replaced by tomorrow's specialists, and where AI literacy has become as fundamental as coding itself.