part 1.

As engineers enter 2025, I am noticing a few trends in the tech world career space as Engineering Manager at a regional tech giant and unfortunately, the future looks bleak for p50 engineers.

Lower Demand

Managers Are Incentivized to Hire in Low-Cost Regions

Managers are measured by headcount. The number of people they oversee reflects the trust the organization places in them and the value it expects them to generate. Growing that number often translates directly to career advancement. It’s why a common interview question for management roles is: “How many people do you manage?”—followed closely by, “Do you manage other managers?”

When it comes to layoffs, managers and directors don’t want to cut staff. Their incentive is to maintain control over their organization and its influence within the company. But when finance orders a 5% reduction in headcount costs, directors have limited choices:

• Lay off employees and rehire in lower-cost markets [0]
• Implement return-to-office (RTO) policies to drive attrition (canceling backfills)

In 2023, Big Tech companies opted for layoffs with generous severance packages.

In 2024, they pushed RTO mandates and canceled remote positions.

In 2025, they cut deeply into “low performers” to avoid severance payouts.

As American workers are laid off, headcount shifts to abroad—evident in the continued surge of hiring in Bengaluru (timesofindia.indiatimes.com).

Bangalore remains at the forefront of India’s job market, boasting a 9.3% increase in job opportunities and salary growth compared to last year, as reported by TeamLease Services in its Jobs and Salaries Primer Report for FY 23-24.

Oct 2024, peoplematters.in

Cost shift

Startups and dev shops were once the launchpads for CS grads from non-traditional backgrounds. Experienced engineers flocked to big tech for higher pay, better work-life balance, and lower career risk.

With limited budgets, startups would hire fresh grads—university or coding bootcamp graduates—as low-cost, diamond-in-the-rough talent. After 2-4 years of experience, these engineers would often move to senior roles at big tech companies, doubling their pay and scope.

But today, fewer startups are getting funding, and many are more open to hiring internationally to stretch their budgets. This shift leads to…

More Supply

The number of people who can code is growing at an unprecedented rate—fueled by formal education, bootcamps, and self-taught developers. This isn’t just a trend; it’s an economic shift.

Locally

Coding bootcamps now graduate hundreds of thousands of students each year. Even if only 10% land jobs, that still adds tens of thousands of new developers competing in the market.

In 2015, fewer than 20,000 professionals attended coding bootcamps to improve or reskill. By 2021, that number had grown fivefold to 100,000. By 2025, it’s projected to reach 380,000. — HolonIQ

Pop culture has also played a role. The Social Network appeared on over 70 critics’ top 10 lists (Wikipedia). The rise of YouTube coding influencers, Twitch live-coding streams, and viral TikToks about tech salaries has made programming more aspirational than ever.. Even viral trends like “How old are you, and how much do you make?” fuel interest in tech careers.

Meanwhile, the number of computer science graduates continues to rise. In 2021, U.S. universities produced over 100,000 CS graduates (NCES).

This shift doesn’t just affect those laid off—it also increases competition for those still in the job market.

The top 30 H-1B employers hired 34,000 new H-1B workers in 2022 while laying off at least 85,000 workers in 2022 and early 2023. — EPI

Internationally

Thomas Friedman once said, “The world is flat.” That remains true today. As access to technology and education spreads, the dominance of any one country in coding skills is rapidly eroding.

Fifteen years ago, if you lived in South America or Asia, learning to code meant first learning English and getting reliable access to a computer—barriers that put American kids five years ahead of the rest of the world. But in the last five years, that gap has shrunk dramatically.

• Low-cost laptops are now widely available in developing countries.
• Online and in-person English classes make documentation more accessible.
• Free and paid coursework is available to anyone with an internet connection.

Big Tech has also played a role. Companies hiring internationally don’t just fill positions—they train engineers who previously had little access to formal CS education.

When I traveled to Vietnam in 2016, I remember thinking how difficult it was to succeed as a coder there. Before even starting web development, you needed to learn English just to read the documentation for Twitter Bootstrap or Ruby on Rails.

Fast forward to 2025, and things look different. React documentation is now fully available in six languages, with partial translations in 32 more. With tools like ChatGPT, Google Translate, and YouTube, English proficiency is no longer a prerequisite for learning to code. At Grab, we’ve hired many talented engineers with limited English skills.

The global talent pool isn’t just growing—it’s leveling the playing field. A coder in São Paulo or Bangalore now has access to the same knowledge and opportunities as one in Silicon Valley. The future of tech isn’t just in the U.S.—it’s everywhere.

Part 2 will discuss the Data Science field.