The Job Market for Coders: From Bubble to Reset (2025 → 2026)

The job market for coders went through a clear correction in 2025. After aggressive hiring during COVID, the industry was carrying more people than the amount of stable work available. It was only a matter of time before this bubble burst — and in 2025, it finally did.

During the first 8–9 months of my job, I saw projects becoming increasingly short-term. Clients wanted to experiment, observe results, and then decide what to do next. This uncertainty directly affected service-based companies and slowed down hiring across the board.

I left my job voluntarily, assuming I would find another role after a short break. Instead, I spent 3.5 months without a job, which gave me a front-row view of how confused hiring had become. This confusion felt familiar — I had faced something similar while building my own products, where deciding what to build next was harder than building itself.

During this break, I spent time using Cursor, an AI-powered IDE. Initially, it was impressive and a little intimidating. There were moments when I genuinely wondered why companies would even hire developers if tools like this could generate so much code. But over time, I noticed something important: the more I relied on it blindly, the more complex the codebase became. Simple changes started taking longer than rewriting things from scratch. That experience made it clear that these tools work best as assistants, not substitutes.

This shift has important implications for junior developers. The bar is rising. If senior developers can handle more work efficiently, traditional junior roles will naturally reduce. That doesn't mean juniors are obsolete — it means juniors who learn faster, adapt, and understand these tools will still find space. Others may struggle as the market continues to correct itself.

One reassuring part of these 3.5 months was that I cleared almost 95% of the interviews I attended. That gave me confidence that my 8+ years of experience hadn't lost value — the slowdown was more about timing and transition than relevance.

As we've entered 2026, things already feel clearer. Companies seem more certain about what they want, roles are better defined, and hiring is becoming more focused. The job market isn't collapsing — it's resetting. And resets tend to reward people who learn, adapt, and stay honest about where the industry is headed.