The technology sector has never had so many open vacancies and yet finding a job there has become a task harder than ever. This apparent contradiction is not just a feeling: the data confirms it, and it has everything to do with how AI is redrawing the map of who has a place and who does not in technology companies.
A detailed analysis by Lenny Rachitsky, expert in the technological labor market and host of the popular Lenny’s Podcastoffers an image that invites reflection. The figures are the most optimistic that has been recorded in its four editions of the report on the state of employment in the technological product sector, but the reality of many professionals who looking for a new job contradicts that optimism on paper.
Numbers are deceiving (or at least, they don’t tell everything). According to the collected data by Rachitsky through TrueUp, a platform that tracks job offers in more than 9,000 technology companies in the world, there are more than 7,300 vacancies open for profiles Product Manager At a global level, 75% above that recorded at the beginning of 2023 and almost 20% more than at the beginning of this same year. In engineering, the figure is even more striking, with more than 67,000 active offers worldwide and 26,000 in the US alone.
However, more vacancies do not automatically equal easier finding a job. Rachitsky himself acknowledges in his report that there are many people having a hard time searching, and that this does not change because the overall numbers are good. He labor market growsYes, but it doesn’t do it at the same rate for everyone. not even for all profiles.
The boom in roles linked to AI. The great catalyst for this growth is AI. Jobs related to its development and implementation are skyrocketing compared to other technology roles, something Rachitsky describes as a hockey stick-shaped growth curve. This profile demand of software engineering reaches both native AI companies (such as OpenAI, Anthropic or Cursor) and non-technology companies, which looking for product managers specialized in integrating these technologies into their processes.
a report of the London School of Economics confirms that more than 76% of product managers expect to expand their investment in AI in 2026, which has triggered demand for managers capable of translating the capabilities of AI models into concrete products. The profile that companies are looking for, however, is very specific and not just any candidate with AI on the resume is worth it, but experienced professionals in implementation and with the ability to make decisions in environments where AI is already part of the development process.
Side B: junior profiles are left out. This is where the other side of the paradox comes in. The report by Anthropic ‘Labor market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence’reveals that overall unemployment among workers most exposed to AI has not increased significantly since the arrival of ChatGPT, but there is a worrying sign in the data from hiring the youngest.
Specifically, the study detects that, since 2024, workers between 22 and 25 years old have increasingly less likely to be hired in jobs most exposed to automation. The incorporation rate for these positions has fallen approximately half a percentage point, reducing by up to 14% the probability that a young man finds a job in those occupations, relative to levels prior to the launch of ChatGPT. For workers over 25 years of age, however, that same drop is not observed.
Design, the great forgotten of the recovery. There is another profile that the recovery of employment in the technological labor market seems to have left aside: the design one. While product and engineering roles have been growing for two years, vacancies for designers have practically stagnated since the beginning of 2023, with around 5,700 global offers compared to more than 7,300 for product.
The analysis firm Humbl Design confirms in its January 2026 report that design roles oriented toward routine execution will barely grow between 2% and 3% until 2034, while profiles specialized in strategy and problem solving project an increase of 16% in the same period.
AI has a lot to do with this stagnation. Its ability to accelerate the work of engineers has reduced dependence on traditional design processes, especially in the prototyping and generation of visual variants phases. That is, AI has assumed that role and is now executed from the development departments, so companies They don’t need so many designers anymore..
In Xataka | “The world is in danger”: Anthropic’s security manager leaves the company to write poetry
Image | Unsplash (Mimi Thian)
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings