"Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before."
Gino Ferrand, writing today from Santa Fe, New Mexico 🏜️
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.
AI-Enabled Nearshore Engineers: The Ultimate Competitive Edge
The future of software engineering isn’t just AI... it’s AI-powered teams. By combining AI-driven productivity with top-tier remote nearshore engineers, companies unlock exponential efficiency at a 40-60% lower cost, all while collaborating in the same time zone.
✅ AI supercharges senior engineers—faster development, fewer hires needed
✅ Nearshore talent = same time zones—real-time collaboration, no delays
✅ Elite engineering at significant savings—scale smarter, faster, better
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)
– Gino Ferrand, Founder @ TECLA