Will AI replace software engineers? The job ads point the other way: 37,290 software engineering postings are live, one of the largest pools in a catalogue of companies that build or adopt AI. 3,595 of them build AI, where building AI is the job, and 28,051 involve little AI. Measured October 2026.
The number this article rests on: 37,290 live software engineering postings, of which 28,051 involve little AI and 3,595 build AI. 8,600 postings carry a software engineer, software developer, or programmer title. Measured October 2026.
The debate about AI and programming mostly runs on demos and forecasts. This page runs on job ads. Level reads each posting and rates it from Little AI, where AI appears as a tool in the workflow, to Builds AI (AI Level 4), where building AI systems is the work itself; the scale is on the Levels page and the procedure on the method page.
The catalogue is a hard test for this question. Its employers are companies that build or adopt AI, which is where a coding assistant would replace an engineer first if it could. If any employer had stopped hiring engineers because a model could do the work, it would be one of these.
Will AI replace software engineers?
Not on the evidence of current hiring. The companies closest to the technology keep 37,290 software engineering roles open, and 5,644 of them, who use AI or work on AI, expect engineers to work with AI tools every day. That is a change in how the job is done, not a removal of the job. Measured October 2026.
A count of open roles cannot see a change that has not reached the ads yet, and it says nothing about teams that shrank without posting. What it does show is that the employers with the best view of what models can do are still writing engineering job descriptions, and still paying for them.
How many software engineering jobs build AI?
3,595 of 37,290 software engineering postings build AI, or 9.6%. Across the whole catalogue the Builds AI share is 4.4%, which puts engineering above the market. Engineers are the people building the systems the question is about. Measured October 2026.
Little AI still dominates the category, at 75.2%. Most engineering postings in this catalogue use AI as a tool rather than build it. The Builds AI listings isolate the roles where the model itself is the product.
Which AI tools do engineering postings ask for?
Among postings titled software engineer, developer, or programmer, the tools named most often are Python (1,829), C (1,258), and Kubernetes (1,005), counted once per posting. Across the whole catalogue, 67,944 of 168,899 postings name at least one tool. The assistants are written into the job, next to the engineer. Measured October 2026.
A tool counts once per posting, when its name appears in the text, so a posting can name several. A coding assistant named in a job ad is a direct sign of what the employer expects: engineers who direct and review generated code, not engineers who are replaced by it. Each tool hub, such as Cursor or Claude, lists the live roles that name it.
Do software engineers still earn a premium?
Postings titled software engineer, developer, or programmer that publish a USD range show a median maximum of $252,000 and a floor of $180,000, on 4,040 listings. That sits above the catalogue-wide median maximum of $200,000. Only postings that print a USD range are counted. Measured October 2026.
A published range is not a guaranteed offer. Pay still carries a message: an employer that publishes a range is still budgeting for the role. The AI engineer salary guide breaks the same data down by AI title.
Are software engineering jobs still being posted?
2,515 of the 8,600 live software engineer postings were published in the last 30 days, or 29.2%. The same share across the catalogue is 38.1%, so engineering hiring runs below the market pace. A field being automated away would show a thin stream of new postings. Measured October 2026.
Live postings are a stock, not a flow: older roles close as new ones open, so a steady publishing pace matters more than the headline count. That pace is re-measured with every snapshot, and the software engineering hub shows the newest roles first.
Which companies are still hiring software engineers?
The employers with the most live software engineer postings are NVIDIA (471), Cisco (346), and Anduril Industries (345). 2,351 of the 8,600 software engineer roles are remote, or 27.3%, against 16.4% across the catalogue. Every one of these employers builds or adopts AI. Measured October 2026.
Remote status is read from the posting, so a hybrid role that does not say so counts as on-site. Each company page lists the rest of that employer's open roles, which shows whether engineering is a large part of its hiring or a small one.
Is software engineering still a good career?
Software engineering accounts for 22.1% of all 168,899 live postings, one of the largest pools in the catalogue, and 3,595 of its roles build AI directly. 18.8% of the category is remote, above the catalogue share of 16.4%. That is the demand side of the question. Measured October 2026.
A good career is more than a count of openings, and this page does not measure satisfaction, stability, or promotion. It measures demand. On that measure alone, the companies that build or adopt AI are still hiring engineers in large numbers, and the roles they write increasingly assume an engineer who works with AI tools.
Are junior developers being squeezed out?
2,384 of the 37,290 software engineering postings are tagged intern or junior, or 6.4%. Across the catalogue, 17,581 postings are junior or intern against 73,682 senior or lead. Entry-level engineering is thin in this market, and that is the honest caveat to everything above. Measured October 2026.
Seniority is read from the posting text, and 23,035 postings say nothing about it, so the entry-level count is a floor. A thin junior pipeline has more than one cause, and a job-ad count cannot separate them. The entry-level guide lists where the junior openings that do exist sit.
Will AI replace programmers and data scientists?
The data category, which holds data scientist and machine learning titles, has 5,983 live postings: 25.5% build AI and 55.2% involve little AI. Software engineering sits at 9.6% and 75.2% on the same two measures. Both categories are hiring the people who build AI. Measured October 2026.
Programmer, developer, and QA titles are filed under software engineering here, so the numbers above already include them. The word that changes is not the title but the toolset in the description.
Data science comes up alongside programming in the same question, because both deal in code and models. The Builds AI shares above show both categories hiring people to build AI, not only to use it, and the catalogue-wide Builds AI share is 4.4% for comparison. The comparison is limited to live postings at companies in this catalogue, and it says nothing about analysts or developers at firms that never post there. The data category hub lists the live data roles with their Levels.
Which 3 jobs will survive AI?
The three largest categories of live postings are software engineering (37,290 postings, 75.2% with little AI), sales (16,988 postings, 82.6% with little AI), and operations (10,723 postings, 89.8% with little AI). Size is not a promise about the future, but it is the demand employers are paying for today. Measured October 2026.
- Software Engineering: 37,290 live postings, 9.6% build AI, 18.8% remote.
- Sales: 16,988 live postings, 0.9% build AI, 29.5% remote.
- Operations: 10,723 live postings, 0.3% build AI, 13.9% remote.
A longer list, ranked by how human-centred each category is, is in AI-proof jobs. The same test applied to finance is in Will AI replace accountants.
The jobs right now
Live software engineering postings that use AI in the daily work, newest first, generated from the catalogue rather than written by hand.
