Software engineers can still rake in big bucks by working for fast-growing companies

AI and ML

AI's impact on tech business is complicated

If you listen to the AI industry, coders' days are numbered. Despite these concerns, software developers, at least those with experience, appear to be doing just fine at growing companies.

Hiring biz Levels.fyi recently looked at how US compensation for software engineers (SWEs) is related to changes in headcount and found that salary level tends to be correlated with growth.

"Generally, the companies paying the most are also the ones still hiring the most," observed Hakeem Shibly, content marketing manager for Levels.fyi, in a LinkedIn post.

As an example, he pointed to companies like Anthropic and OpenAI where senior SWE offers are said to be around $810,000 and $605,000 annually.

Several large companies with major investments in AI infrastructure occupy a different statistical space – they're still paying well and generating healthy profits, but they're also cutting staff.

"Meta, Amazon, Google, and Coinbase all pay near the top of the market, and all four have cut staff in the last two years," said Shibly. 

In the least desirable quadrant, where eroding headcount meets lower relative compensation, we find companies like Microsoft, Oracle, and Salesforce, where AI expenditures and AI liabilities appear to be taking a toll on hiring and compensation.

"At certain companies like Block, for example, they did announce in their layoffs that it was specifically because they're increasing their investment in AI and they're cutting people from their organization," Shibly told The Register. 

"But, at other companies, it's a little bit more ambiguous. They're not necessarily saying that in their layoff announcements. But there has been some correlation – companies that have been spending more money on their AI compute, their AI investment, have been cutting heads as well, even though they're increasing in revenue."

As this applies to SWEs, Shibly said, "There's been a bifurcation in the market where the people who are getting paid the most are getting paid much more than they used to be. And the people who are below some certain threshold … they're getting cut and it's harder for them than ever to find jobs."

That hasn't been the case in Australia, where technology services firm Adaca last month said that demand for software developers has been growing. The biz reported that there are now 216,000 software and application programmers working in Australia, up from 189,000 in 2025.

"We are seeing devs displaced, not replaced," said Adaca founder Lambros Photios in a statement. "They are leaving big tech and finding work anywhere and everywhere else."

Looking beyond just SWEs, recent data from Ramp and Revelio suggests AI leads companies to hire more people over time.

"If I were a software engineer in this market," said Shibly, "I would prioritize looking for a job at a company that is growing, even if it might not be paying as much, because at least for me personally, I want to be guaranteed that job [will still exist] a couple years down the line. And that's kind of what the data shows." ®