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Recent data from tech recruiting firm Karat shows the job market for software engineers is “poised to rebound after a period of uncertainty,” although potential employers got pickier this year.
In 2024, according to Karat’s annual tech hiring trends report, respondents indicated the average technical interview score required to get a job increased by 12% year over year—indicating “increased importance on hiring consistency and improving the quality of hires.” From 2023 to 2024, US engineering leaders also reported higher satisfaction with engineering performance (53% to 63% “very satisfied”) and confidence in meeting hiring targets (45% to 57% “very confident”).
According to Gordie Hanrahan, senior director of communications at Karat and lead researcher on the report, engineering leaders appear to be ending the roughly two-year pause in technical hiring.
“Software engineers are being valued higher than ever in terms of the ROI that they deliver companies,” Hanrahan told IT Brew, but potential employers have been changing focus on their technology goals.
Engineering leaders said they had increased the priority of hiring for every single category of engineering role—including AI engineer, full-stack developer, and cloud architect—with the sole exception of blockchain engineer, which saw a minor YoY decrease.
“People are looking to fill a lot of these roles that had been a little bit left out last year,” Hanrahan said.
Rising score requirements on technical skills tests might suggest employers are renewing an obsession with onerous coding tests. But Hanrahan said he hadn’t seen any evidence employers are backing away from candidates with nontraditional backgrounds, who technical certification firm CompTIA advocates are valuable for employers seeking to broaden their skills mix.
“The change that we’ve seen over the last year is really coming from a lot of engineering leaders that are focused on bringing in higher quality engineers, higher performing engineers, and that’s really been across the board,” Hanrahan said. “The companies are being more selective. Part of that is just due to a tighter labor market in general.”
Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, told IT Brew via email that Karat’s data indicated a “slight downward trend” in the slice of job openings that required zero to three years of experience. The monthly average percentage of engineering roles fell from 20% in 2022 to just 16% in 2024.
“If employers are now hiring with an eye towards prior work experience, it is possible the higher technical interview scores reflect more experienced, higher caliber candidates,” Herbert wrote. “Alternatively, the types of candidates that may score lower due to less on-the-job experience are not even making it to the technical interview round; the exclusion of their scores thereby raises the overall average score…tough to know for sure.”