# US firms hired 113,000 software engineers in a year, half the 2022 peak. PM openings hit a four-year high

A new jobs report shows AI sorting tech work: PMs and forward deployed engineers gain, while design, research and front-end openings shrink.

By Patrick Karsh · 567 Business
Published: 2026-11-11T12:10:34.673198Z
Updated: 2026-11-11T12:10:48.317569Z
Canonical: https://567business.com/news/tech-job-market-engineer-hiring-halved-pm-openings-2026

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US tech companies hired about 113,000 software engineers in the 12 months to April 2026. That is less than half the 239,000 they hired at the 2022 peak, according to Lenny Rachitsky's new [State of the tech job market report](https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/state-of-the-tech-job-market-late), published November 10. Over the same stretch, open product manager roles climbed to their highest level in nearly four years. Product design openings fell to a record low.

So the AI era is not killing tech jobs evenly. It is sorting them. Generalist engineers, forward deployed engineers and product managers are in demand. Designers, user researchers, and mobile and front-end specialists are watching their openings shrink fast.

## Where the jobs went

The report draws on two datasets. [TrueUp](https://www.trueup.io/) tracks open roles at more than 9,000 tech companies worldwide. [Live Data Technologies](https://www.livedatatechnologies.com/) tracks actual job changes for 124 million US professionals. Openings show what companies say they want. Hires show what they actually do.

| Role | What changed | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Product managers | Openings up 75% from the March 2023 low | Since 2023 |
| Engineers | Openings up just 2.5% | Past year |
| Product designers | About 1,900 openings, down 28% | Past year |
| Forward deployed engineers | Openings up 4.6 times, to about 1,500 | Past year |
| Mobile and front-end engineers | Openings nearly halved | Past year |

Source: [Lenny's Newsletter](https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/state-of-the-tech-job-market-late), using TrueUp openings data for tech companies globally.

Rachitsky posted the headline findings on X on Tuesday afternoon. The thread has been viewed more than 700,000 times, and more than 3,300 people bookmarked it.

https://x.com/lennysan/status/2120211695453028770

## Engineers: openings stalled, hiring halved

Open engineering roles grew 29% through 2024 and 15% through 2025. This past year they grew 2.5%. There are now fewer open engineering roles at tech companies than there were in March, Rachitsky wrote. About 65,000 remain open.

The hiring numbers are harsher than the openings. US companies hired about 113,000 software engineers from May 2025 to April 2026, Live Data Technologies found. That number has dropped every year since 2022.

```chart
type: column
title: US hires in core tech roles, 2022 peak vs. the latest 12 months
note: Latest period is May 2025 to April 2026. US hires only.
source: [Lenny's Newsletter, Live Data Technologies data](https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/state-of-the-tech-job-market-late)
---
Role | 2022 | Latest 12 months
Software engineers | 239,000 | 113,000
Product designers | 27,600 | 12,600
User researchers | 5,300 | 1,800
```

The gap between openings and hires matters. Since January 2024, engineering openings are up 44% while hiring is down 17%. Rachitsky reads that as companies posting jobs but struggling to find the people they want.

## Front-end and mobile are being folded into one job

The sharpest split is inside engineering itself. Forward deployed engineers, who sit with customers to make AI products work, are the fastest growing specialty. Security engineering is close behind. Mobile and front-end roles have been nearly cut in half in a year.

Rachitsky's chart of that split drew more than 220,000 views. His theory is that smaller teams now own more of the product end to end, helped by AI tools, so siloed specialties are fading.

https://x.com/lennysan/status/2120274852766703938

Gergely Orosz, who writes The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter, quoted the chart early Wednesday. He said it confirms a trend he flagged in April. "Native mobile and frontend roles are dying. This trend sped up," he wrote. His advice: become a more general software engineer who uses AI.

https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/2120426774576103438

That worry is not new on Reddit. On r/cscareerquestions, a thread from earlier this year titled ["Is front-end development really dying in 2026?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1twuv65/is_frontend_development_really_dying_in_2026/) came from a beginner asking whether it was still worth learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The new data gives that fear some numbers.

## Designers and researchers are hit hardest

Design is in worse shape. Only about 1,900 product design roles are open at tech companies around the world, the lowest since Rachitsky began tracking. There are now 3.8 open PM roles for every open design role, up from 1.9 in early 2023.

User research fell furthest. Only about 1,800 user researchers were hired in the US in the past year, down 66% from 2022. Just 108 UX research jobs were open at tech companies globally when the report was written. Designers on Reddit's r/UXDesign have argued for months about [the flip in demand from designers to PMs](https://www.reddit.com/r/UXDesign/comments/1s5k3st/the_ratio_of_demand_for_pms_vs_designers_has/).

## AI skills are now the entry ticket

"LLM" is now the most mentioned skill in product manager job descriptions, the report found. "Claude" is third. Cursor, OpenAI and MCP are in the top eight. For engineers, "LLM" just passed Java. For designers, "Claude" became the second most mentioned skill this spring, ahead of CSS.

## Fewer remote jobs, more Bay Area jobs

Just 14% of open tech roles now offer a remote option, a record low and down from 21% in late 2022. Meanwhile, 15% of all open roles at tech companies are in the San Francisco Bay Area, also a record. Open Bay Area jobs are up 43% from a year ago.

## What the numbers don't show

These are job postings and job changes, not layoffs. Openings can be posted and never filled. Some growth may be relabeling: Rachitsky notes that some "sales engineer" jobs are likely being renamed "forward deployed engineer." The hiring data covers only the US, while the openings data is global. And the full report is partly behind a paywall, so some charts are not public.

The wider job market still looks calm. Weekly jobless claims recently matched a 57-year low, as we [reported earlier](/news/jobless-claims-lowest-since-1969). That calm sits next to a sharp reshuffle inside tech. For more on how AI firms are spending on talent, see our story on [Mercor's $20 billion valuation](/news/mercor-20-billion-series-d-inference-salaries). For a different kind of squeeze on tech workers, read about [IBM ending visa sponsorship in its consulting arm](/news/ibm-ends-visa-sponsorship-consulting).