Big Tech is losing its appeal for new graduates and young tech workers who are starting to look elsewhere to launch their careers.
Major tech companies including Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Oracle, along with scores of smaller companies such as Twitter and Snap, have spent the last year trying to combat slowing growth and rising interest rates with layoffs of hundreds of thousands of tech workers. Many of those same workers spent the last several months looking for new positions, only for rejections to meet them.
One mid-level engineer who a social-media company laid off last year said they went through complete rounds of interviews at two FAANG companies. Both companies ultimately rejected them due to further layoffs at those companies. Earlier this year, they accepted an offer at a company in another industry at almost 50% less than what they previously earned.
"I've lost so much faith in the tech industry over the last year," they said. "I'm not sure why I got into it in the first place."
Students and recent graduates majoring in tech-focused degrees such as computer science and engineering hear this type of story frequently. Peers and mentors warn them to avoid the trappings of embarking on a Big Tech career. Previously lauded as one of the most stable, perk-heavy, and high-paying fields, some now see tech as capricious and offering young workers an uncertain future. Generative-AI tools such as ChatGPT may even eliminate the need for entry-level engineers and developers with its ability to generate "very good code" when prompted.
"It's the worst time to be a junior engineer since 2000, when the Dot Com bubble burst," Aline Lerner, the founder and CEO of the platform Interviewing.io, which offers people help with job prep through live mock interviews with top engineers from major tech companies, said.
Falling interest in tech
At MIT, enrollment of students declaring a major of computer science and engineering is up by 5% percent from 2020, from 735 to 774 students, according to enrollment data the school makes public.
Yet MIT is seeing far fewer students graduate with that degree. The number of computer-science graduates fell by 12% last year to 260 students, compared to 297 students in 2020. At Princeton, while computer science remains its most popular major, the number of students declaring it fell this year to 9% for the first time since 2019 from 12% the year before.
In addition, the number of students and junior engineers using Interviewing.io during the first quarter of this year dropped to one-tenth of what it was a year ago. Based on conversations with students and companies, even students from top schools including Stanford and MIT and junior engineers from top tech companies are "feeling the crunch now," Lerner said.
"When business is squeezed and hiring slows down, junior roles are the first to get cut, and no one is looking to add them now," Lerner said. "Add to that the usefulness of AI tools like ChatGPT, which can do some of the work that a junior-level or intern-level engineer would do, it's especially brutal."
Tech students are applying to jobs in other fields
While students and young engineers are still interested in pursuing tech-focused careers, where they want to put in their time is changing.
Interest in jobs outside of well-known companies has soared, according to a study surveying close to 2,000 students this year from Handshake, which helps prep and connect students with jobs at many major tech companies.
Job applications to government entities have grown by 104%, while those to nonprofits grew by 44%. Raytheon was the most-searched company among student job searchers, with interest in the defense company up by 209%. Meanwhile, Handshake found that the importance among students of applying to a company with a major brand name fell by 10% and that of a company perceived to be fast-growing fell by 15%.
"Above all, students want a stable job that pays well, and they're willing to flex other requirements — from company brand and growth rate to remote-work options — to get it," the study said.
Students in computer-engineering fields are also increasingly interested in applying what they've learned to have a positive impact on society, not simply landing a big paycheck in Big Tech.
Stephen Pultz, who leads enrollment management at the University of San Diego, said there's been no drop in interest in the school's STEM majors, but that students are starting some "existential questioning."
"I see more and more students wanting and thinking of ways to apply their degrees to bigger issues, like energy and sustainability," Pultz said. "They want to use these majors to do good. They still want to make money and not have huge debt, but social responsibility is really resonating with these students."
The impact of waning interest in Big Tech among students on major companies remains to be seen. One possible outcome is that the still overwhelmingly white and male-dominated tech industry will remain that way without a pipeline of young women and people of color ready to join their ranks.
"Five years down the line, we still won't see many senior engineers who are women or people of color," Lerner said.
Are you a tech employee or someone else with insight to share? Contact Kali Hays at khays@insider.com, on secure messaging app Signal at 949-280-0267, or through Twitter DM at @hayskali. Reach out using a non-work device.
