Why Smart CTOs Are Rebuilding Their Hiring Models in 2025

AI is delivering exactly what it promised: faster dev cycles, more shipped code, and higher output per engineer.

Now comes the part no one likes to talk about: How will this affect developer jobs?

In 2025, the CEOs of the world’s largest tech companies have been unusually candid about what AI is doing inside their engineering orgs:

• Marc Benioff (Salesforce): “30% productivity increase… we’re not going to hire any new engineers this year.” Salesforce implemented a hiring freeze on developers and began cutting roles while investing in AI-driven tools to extract more from existing teams.

• Mark Zuckerberg (Meta): Called mid-level engineers “expendable” in light of AI’s coding capabilities. At Meta’s LlamaCon, he predicted that half of Meta’s code could be AI-written within a year.

• Sundar Pichai (Google): Reported that over 30% of Google’s new code is now generated by AI. Said generative AI is “deeply embedded in everything we do,” hinting that future hiring might favor oversight and design over raw implementation.

• Satya Nadella (Microsoft): Said 20–30% of Microsoft’s code is now AI-authored, and that the company is reorganizing to optimize the ratio of engineers to managers—cutting non-coding roles.

What they’re all signaling, implicitly or explicitly, is this: higher productivity may not mean more dev jobs. It may mean fewer.

What if everyone else follows their lead?

If you’re a startup or a mid-market CTO, it’s tempting to assume your dev hiring will look the same in 6 months. But what happens when your investors ask you to match FAANG-level output with half the headcount? What happens when your AI tools catch up to theirs?

A recent analysis found that entry-level software dev job postings are down 38% since 2022. And engineers who don’t adopt AI tools? 60% slower, on average, according to GitHub data.

The hiring shift is already here...it just hasn’t hit everyone yet.

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AI fluency isn’t a nice-to-have anymore

Anil Dash put it best: "AI-first is the new return to office."

It’s not optional. It’s the expectation. Just like every executive had a return-to-office plan in 2021, every company in 2025 is expected to have an AI plan. That means talent strategies are shifting fast.

VCs are pushing for AI-native roadmaps. CEOs are benchmarking teams against AI-augmented output. And hiring managers are starting to screen for how well you collaborate with the machine, not just how well you code.

AI enablement isn’t a future skill. It’s this quarter’s advantage.

What might come next?

• Fewer open roles.

• Higher expectations for each engineer.

• More scrutiny on dev productivity per dollar.

• A new bar for AI fluency in every engineering job description.

2025 will be a massive hiring recalibration. And if you’re not planning for it, you’re already behind.

More to come…

Recommended Reads

✔️"AI-first" is the new Return To Office (Anil Dash)

✔️No new engineer hires this year as AI coding tools boost productivity, says Salesforce (The Register)

✔️‘Gen AI will not lead to hiring decline’ (Mint)