Being a US-based Software Engineer in 2025; is it what it used to be?
I grew up near Lead, South Dakota. My dad worked at Homestake Mine— a solid job that employed a good majority of the population in the 1980s and 1990s[1]. By 2001, all those jobs were gone[2]. Each year felt manageable until it wasn't and it hit the area really hard.
US software engineering employment peaked November 2019[3]. The decline started before AI; before the pandemic. Now, in 2025, Software engineering job postings are down 35%[4]. Entry-level software engineering jobs are down 50%[5]. The work didn't disappear, though. It moved. Asia software engineering jobs are up 312%. Eastern Europe softare engineering jobs are 168% to name a few areas these jobs have move to[6].
Is This a Familiar Pattern?
Looking back historically at the decline of other US middle class opportunities, this shouldn't feel new.
GM, which peaked with 618,000 employees (1979), cut jobs for 30 years and then needed $51B taxpayer bailout (2009)[7]. It now employs 164,000.
GE, which peaked at 411,000 (1980), was led by Jack Welch who implemented "rank and yank". Wall Street loved it until GE quietly took $16B from the Fed + $74B in FDIC-backed debt guarantees during 2008[8] to stay afloat and then split into three companies 2024 because the core business had been hollowed out.
Big Tech (2022-2024): Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft have cut 42,000+ jobs while posting record profits—$327B combined[9]. CEO pay is up 35%. Engineer real wages are down 7%[10].
The "No Talent" Myth
US universities, widely considered world-leading, produce ~90,000 CS graduates annually. The same companies claiming talent shortages cut 42,000+ jobs while posting record profits and appear to not want to hire here.
Manufacturing real wages fell 8% in the six years after their employment peak around 1980. Software engineering is on the same trajectory now.
GM and GE framed cuts as efficiency and then both needed public money to survive. A shrinking group of people won. Everyone else adjusted downward, year-by-year, until the pattern was undeniable.
I watched my dad's workplace go from 2,200 jobs to zero. Each year felt manageable until the mine was completely gone. The numbers for US manufacturing jobs in the 1980s seem to be matching a similar trajectory for US-based software engineers now. I'm not confident these strategies of off-shoring and cutting are about innovation or efficiency—or that they'll lead to longer-term stability. Data shows otherwise.
Software engineers built the digital infrastructure the largest companies in the world run on. Now their treatment is beginning to mimic US manufacturing. I understand the need to compete and that cutting costs is table stakes to ensure there is capital to invest. However, there comes a point; drive down pretty much any main street in the US in 2025 to see it; where too much cutting leaves behind a sort of desolate zombie-land. Did we cut too much? How long can the investor class continue to sell the American dream from buildings and infrastructure treated like a dump?