2026年科技就业市场：招聘方与求职者的困境与出路

What is the tech jobs market like for job seekers and hiring managers today? It’s a broad question for which one answer is that it’s a land of contrasts and confusion, and also some crossed wires. Experienced engineers and managers feel ghosted by employers and recruiters, who in turn have given up on inbound applications because their inboxes are full of AI slop, sometimes from bogus candidates. It’s rosier for those with specific skillsets, who are in strong demand – and personal networks help more than ever to land the right job.

For this final part of our series on the tech hiring market during the first half of 2026, I spoke with more than 50 hiring managers, software engineers, and engineering leaders. Thank you to everyone who contributed!

For more on this topic, check out our analysis of what the data says about the market in Part 1 and Part 2 of this mini-series.

Overall, an appropriate description of the employment market as many folks experience it right now would be “weird”. This is a characteristic that’s not easy to see in the data, but is clear from talking to people and hearing their anecdotal, personal accounts of job hunting this year. I think the data in the first two articles of this series failed to capture just how unusual things are. So, in today’s issue, we attempt to shed some light on the weirdness, covering:

• “Catch-22:” nobody finds each other. Hiring managers struggle to find experienced folks, who barely get any replies when applying for jobs. How’s that work?
• No trust. Is AI to blame? AI-enhanced resumes read as incredible, but hiring managers often face disappointment. Some places don’t bother reading inbound applications as a result.
• Hot market for some, but tough for most. For those in AI Engineering, ML, or FDE, the market is incredible. For everyone else, it’s much less great.
• Higher hiring bar & lower compensation – but not for everyone. Many candidates are unhappy with offers that are the lowest in years. This doesn’t apply to AI Engineering positions or at AI businesses, however.
• Engineering leader recruitment: also weird for senior ICs. Senior engineering leaders are struggling to find opportunities, or may turn them down in favor of fractional roles or to work on their own startup.
• US market trends. Folks experiencing the “best market ever” are likely in the US, where a talent shortage is a bigger complaint than it is elsewhere.
• Trends in the UK, EU, and rest of the world. “Ghosting” is more commonplace than in the US, “fake applicants” a bigger issue, remote roles are going extinct, and more.

For more details on the hiring market, see also:

Part 1: what the data says:

• Software engineering recruitment: trending up, mostly
• Big Tech and publicly-traded companies
• Who’s hiring the most software engineers?
• AI engineering: explosive demand
• Who’s hiring the most AI engineers?
• Is AI engineering replacing software engineering hiring?

Part 2, what the data says, continuied:

• Top AI labs are now more attractive than Big Tech
• Harder for new grads & interns to get hired
• Mobile and frontend demand drops, AI & FDE surges
• AI engineering comp > software engineering comp
• Management’s “great flattening” continues
• Big Tech seniority & tenure keep rising
• Interview preparation signups: what do they indicate?
• Where engineers go after Big Tech

1. “Catch-22:” nobody finds each other

The phrase “Catch 22” refers to a paradoxical problem, whose solution is blocked by the problem itself. The term originated in a famous World War II novel of the same name, and it also describes pretty accurately what I see in today’s tech job market. Hiring managers are saying that highly-skilled talent (typically senior+ engineers) is not available to be recruited, at the same time as experienced, proven professionals find their applications ignored by employers.

What seems paradoxical here is how both can be true. It’s as if recruiters and potential candidates aren’t hearing each other. Of course, there’s some nuance:

My take on the hiring market

Mike Julian, CEO of DuckBill Group, which is hiring software engineers, replied to my post with this observation:

“We get about 1,000 applications a day on inbound and maybe two of them are even relevant to the posting.

I mostly no longer look at inbound seriously because it’s so c***. I’d almost certainly miss a great inbound submission if it came in.

All of our recent hires have been via network and us reaching out to folk on LinkedIn. Biggest hurdle we have to outreach is thin LinkedIn profiles and little other online presence.”

From the other hiring managers we talked with, more themes emerged:

More inbounds than ever & also more noise

“I’ve never seen so many inbounds and strong resumes. I’m hiring for lots of roles; for one software engineering position in Seattle, we have had 800 resumes inbound over a three-month period. I’ve never seen anything like this! These resumes are not low-quality either: they are people who have worked at MSFT, AWS, other large tech companies, and have solid skills.” – Head of Engineering, Series B startup, Seattle, US

“It’s difficult to find good candidates among all the noise. Have had two open senior engineer positions for months, and the only good interviews or offers we’ve extended were in network.” – Engineering Manager, late-stage startup, US

“A glut of vastly underqualified people completely drowning your hiring pipeline. This is what I’m seeing, and it’s making inbound a useless channel.” – Engineering Director, Big Tech, US

“From what I hear from recruiters, every job posted has 1,000+ applicants, and 98% of them are considered unqualified.” – fullstack engineer, Middle East

“We are a small company and gave up on inbound hiring. We got too many AI applications. Much lower signal-to-noise compared to past experience.” – Director of Engineering, Canada

Experienced engineers struggle to get interviews

“Even when you’re good, it feels like there’s a LOT of noise to cut through to get noticed. I’m quietly looking for a new role in devtools, and fit that ‘product engineer’ profile perfectly. I feel like the demand for great people is higher than ever, but I can’t figure out where on that bar I fall.” – Tech lead, seed-stage startup, US

“As an experienced engineer & successful-ish founder I have yet to get to a phone screening in this job market. There is clearly something amiss, just a wall of noise preventing any signal from getting through.” – Software engineer + founder, 8 years experience, US

A staff engineer at a late-stage startup in the US summed things up:

“It feels like everyone who has a good job is holding onto it for dear life, and THOSE are the people we want to hire.”

“Tale of two cities:” in demand or not

A director of engineering at a Big Tech in the US, identifies two distinct groups in the market:

“If you are at the top of your game, have AI experience, and are senior enough, you can write your own ticket. If not, then the job market is tough! This job market is like the tale of these two very different cities.”

Observations from some job seekers echo this: demand feels strong for “AI-adjacent” engineers (those building AI systems), especially in the US. Standout engineers with a strong network are still in demand, and we covered the story of one such person in “How to be a 10x engineer” – interview with a standout dev. For everyone else, it’s a struggle to get an interview!

Referrals: more important than ever?

Several experienced engineers currently on the job market say they only get interviews when they personally know someone at a company:

“Larger companies have to have some serious AI going on to sift through resumes because they are being bombarded. It really is the case that you don’t get your resume seen unless you know people who can vouch for you.” – Technical Program Manager, Big Tech, US