Will there be more software developers working in the United States next year?
My friend—provocateur, venture capitalist, and debutante—Brian Brackeen says no. I say yes.
Now, Brian isn’t some fool. He’s an investor who backs tech companies. I’m a journalist who covers them. So we’re making a bet out of it. [Update: Amusingly, others are betting on this now too]
The truth is, the data makes a strong case for Brian. A few major forces are catching up to software developers: higher interest rates have crushed speculative tech hiring, policy changes have been a drag on software employers, and yes, artificial intelligence might be playing a role.
The result? In 2024, we saw the slowest growth in software developers since we started tracking the data.
One of the most fascinating charts in economics right now—worthy of a whole video on its own—tracks the unemployment rate of recent graduates versus the overall labor force, going back to the early ’80s. For decades, recent grads (those aged 22–27 with a college degree) had lower unemployment than the general population. That held true even in the recessions of the early ’90s, 2001, and the Great Recession.
But starting in 2018, that flipped. Since the pandemic, the unemployment rate for recent grads has been higher than the overall rate.
Why does that matter? Economists think it could be a sign of AI’s growing impact—not through robotics, but through automation of knowledge work, which college grads disproportionately do. That’s the kind of shift that could flatten or even shrink the number of software developers in the years ahead.
So again—why am I betting against Brian?
Because I believe in what Bill Gates said: We tend to overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in a decade. Software development is evolving, not ending. And long-term, I still see growth.
And yes, we’ve got real stakes. The loser of our bet has to wait in line at Angelo’s Pizzeria in Philadelphia—for their beloved seated cheesesteak—while the other gloats.
We’ll both be in town for the Technical.ly Builders Conference, part of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Join us there—we’ll be answering this question and more.