This chart is insane.
Software developer jobs are down nearly 70% from their peak.
Most people will blame the economy…
But that’s not the real story.
Something far bigger is happening:
The middle-class engineer is disappearing.
Why?
Because they’re simply not needed anymore.
One strong developer + AI tools like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Bolt, Replit…
can now ship what entire teams shipped five years ago.
Microsoft just reported the highest revenue per employee in history.
That’s not a coincidence.
The “entry-level engineer” era?
Gone.
Today, we have a new category:
Product builders who happen to know how to code.
Armed with AI, they launch full products in days, not months.
And the best engineers?
They’re not losing their jobs — they’re getting richer.
They’ve moved to the hard problems:
→ AGI at OpenAI
→ Rocket engineering at SpaceX
→ Self-driving systems at Tesla
→ Quantum, robotics, frontier tech
They’re not writing CRUD apps anymore.
They’re building the future.
So here’s the shift:
→ Product builders are becoming solopreneurs.
→ Elite engineers are earning hedge-fund money.
→ The middle layer is dissolving.
In 2025, “software engineer” does not mean what it meant in 2020.
And this chart proves it:
The middle is gone.
The top is elite.
Everyone else becomes a builder.
#SoftwareEngineer