The Reality No One Wants to Admit
Not slowly. Not gradually.
They collapsed—down 70% in just 18 months.
💀 RIP to bloated dev teams.
💀 RIP to mid-level engineers coasting on outdated skills.
💀 RIP to slow, overpriced software builds.
The Reality No One Wants to Admit
The middle-class engineer is disappearing.
Not because of a bad economy. Not because of layoffs. Because they’re not needed anymore.
💡 AI-driven development is replacing traditional coding.
- GitHub Copilot now writes 46% of all new code—with developers accepting AI suggestions 30% to 40% of the time (GitHub, 2023).
- ChatGPT-4 can debug code better than human engineers, scoring in the top 1% for coding problem-solving (OpenAI, 2024).
- Google reduced software engineering hiring by over 50% in 2023, shifting resources to AI research.
💡 The economics of software development are changing.
- Microsoft’s revenue per employee hit a record $1.36M in 2023, thanks to automation and AI-powered workflows (Microsoft Earnings Report, Q4 2023).
- Klarna halted all new developer hires and laid off 10% of its workforce before its IPO, focusing instead on AI-powered automation (Klarna Press Release, 2024).
💡 Companies are shipping faster, with fewer engineers.
- Startups now build MVPs 5x faster using AI-assisted development (Y Combinator, 2024).
- AI-assisted coding tools reduce dev time by 55% (McKinsey, 2023).
- Amazon’s AI-powered DevOps cut deployment times by 70%, leading to fewer engineers needed per project.
Big tech isn’t downsizing—they’re optimizing.
Why?
Because a couple elite engineers with AI replace entire teams.
The Great Engineering Divide
🚀 The Elite (The ones thriving):
✔️ AI-powered Microsoft engineering teams
✔️ High-impact devs solving billion-dollar problems
✔️ Lean product builders shipping in days, not months
⚠️ Everyone Else:
🔹 Using AI to ship solo
🔹 Building micro-businesses
🔹 Becoming product builders
2025 Software Engineering ≠ 2020 Software Engineering.
The middle is gone. The top is elite.
What Does This Mean for Businesses?
If your company still relies on large, slow-moving dev teams, you’re burning resources.
If your engineering processes aren’t AI-optimized, you’re already behind.
The industry is shifting toward smaller, highly specialized engineering teams that leverage AI and automation to deliver impact at scale.
Companies that embrace this AI-first approach will outpace, out-innovate, and outlast those that don’t.
The question isn’t if you’ll adapt.
It’s how quickly you’ll make the shift.
Welcome to the Great Engineering Divide.
