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Big Tech Hiring Trends by Job Function
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Key Takeaways
- Hiring across machine learning and AI roles jumped by 27.1% last year across the 15 largest U.S. big tech companies by market cap.
- Data and software engineering hiring increased by a modest 3.1% and 3%, respectively, in a challenging job market.
- Sales and product marketing roles saw the steepest decline as firms rewrite the tech talent playbook.
Today, hiring trends are changing rapidly in Big Tech firms.
As expectations shift, firms are prioritizing advanced technical roles in machine learning and AI. In sharp contrast, hiring is tumbling across several other roles. As Meta offers multi-million dollar pay packages for OpenAI employees, the tech talent market is growing fiercely competitive in efforts to advance AI systems.
This graphic shows Big Tech hiring trends by job function, based on data from SignalFire.
A Closer Look at Hiring Trends
Below, we show hiring trends across the 15 largest Big Tech firms by market cap:
| Job Function | Hiring Growth2023-2024 |
|---|---|
| Machine Learning/ AI | 27.1% |
| Data Engineering | 3.1% |
| Software Engineering | 3.0% |
| Product Management | 2.7% |
| Data Science & Analytics | -0.9% |
| Recruiting & HR | -7.8% |
| Design | -9.6% |
| Product Marketing | -10.1% |
| Sales | -11.5% |
In 2024, hiring across machine learning and AI roles surged by 27.1%—outpacing data engineering growth by more than ninefold.
Today, 65% of the country’s AI engineers are concentrated in San Francisco and New York— but Miami and San Diego are growing quickly for top tech talent.
Overall, more experienced employees are seeing the highest demand, while entry-level positions are seeing plummeting demand. Not only have new grad hires fallen 50% from pre-pandemic levels across big tech, top computer science grads are facing clear hurdles.
Learn More on the Voronoi App
To learn more about this topic from a job market perspective, check out this graphic on the most in-demand skills in AI.