Tech Job Market Shows Odd Signals As Hiring Managers And Engineers Share Experiences

Here's data on the market that we collected recently: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/state-of-the-job-market-2026

Also, you can email at pulse (at) pragmaticengineer (dot) com

@GergelyOrosz Hiring manager in a large, very good Dutch corporation: the quality of the candidates is very low. People switching jobs are mostly nudged into leaving, so mostly mediocre low energy candidates. They usually accept low balled offers.

@GergelyOrosz we’ve been trying to fill a senior engineer role for six months, we might be close to signing one person. now this is a tech company in Ireland that pays multiples of the mean pay (> 200k TC remote in ireland)..

@GergelyOrosz - Companies tend not to post job online anymore. As soon as you post a job you get within minutes loads of automated applicants. - Most of those automated applications doesn't fit the requirements (for example speaking Dutch) - networking/referrals even more important.

@GergelyOrosz I'm a Berlin based senior SWE. There are many job postings and recruiters reaching out. I know from friends that it's really really hard to find entry level positions. I'm a bit surprised that salaries are still up compared to two years ago.

@GergelyOrosz As a hiring manager (firmware) nothing but sh1t candidates. They look amazing on paper but bomb the interviews. Instead of debating who is the best to hire we are struggling to find any that we could even perform the role.

@GergelyOrosz I feel like I'm using Tinder, trying to optimize my profile to get a few matches, just so I can go on a first date, which will most likely not end in a relationship of any serious duration.

@JideoforO @GergelyOrosz someone being good is all, the quality of candidates have not been good and it’s difficult to gauge when everyone is “ai optimising” their cvs and portfolios and even responses

@GergelyOrosz comp/growth is becoming more important than ever. Why would a 100x engineer leave their current role to take a new one? Former top comp holder employees are becoming the top priority for layoffs.. 1/2

@artee_49 @GergelyOrosz Interesting. What’s the constraint been in getting a Senior Engineer at ~5 median salary in Ireland? 6 months sounds like a relatively long time.

@GergelyOrosz Anecdotally from friends, a bit rough. But most of those friends are SWEs that haven’t embraced AI yet so they may be behind other candidates.

@GergelyOrosz Companies are low-balling more than ever before (at least in Canada)

@GergelyOrosz I suppose it depends on the region. From an engineer’s perspective in 🇲🇽, there are still plenty job openings (Google, Cloudflare, Uber, etc), but not as many as three years ago. There is a shortage of talent here, and the few who are well-prepared can secure these jobs

@GergelyOrosz Very dependent on skill set.

@GergelyOrosz GCC angle: specialised roles (ML, security, product) are extremely hard to fill here because the pool is small and visa-dependent. Engineers from US/EU layoffs are landing faster than usual. The market isn't slow in the Gulf, it's structurally mismatched.

@GergelyOrosz We’ve been able to grab great talent from slower moving orgs that have let indecision & bureaucracy slow down their ai coding rollout.

@GergelyOrosz I suspect we're in a transition phase. Companies are hiring differently, engineers are working differently, and nobody is fully sure yet what "good" looks like in an AI-assisted world.

@GergelyOrosz 👀

@GergelyOrosz hi, happy to follow along and share what i know. i'm building a canned tea brand

@GergelyOrosz It’s a bloodbath….