If you work in technology, AI may not replace your job, although it is changing what employers want from you.

A recent analysis by labor and market data platform Draup found that while AI is changing technical roles, it is not reducing demand for tech workers.

The report is based on an analysis of 2.85 million job descriptions between June 2025 and June 2026. It comes after years of layoffs across the tech industry, with some companies pitching AI as a way to operate with fewer workers.

Draup said AI is expanding the job market, not shrinking it. The company found that positions for software engineering, data engineering, and “development” and “operations” roles, known as DevOps, each had more than 40,000 active job descriptions.

“AI is not reducing the need for technical talent, but it is changing what makes technical talent valuable,” Draup CEO Vijay Swaminathan said in a post on the company’s website.

Changing each role

Artificial intelligence and automation are changing all technical functions, according to the report, although in different ways.

Skills focused on “judgment, design and responsibility” are proving more durable in the age of AI, he said. The report adds that workers’ experience of their roles and their ability to communicate are likely to remain important skills.

Specifically, the company found that system design, debugging, data governance, and model evaluation remain important, while routine work such as “boilerplate coding” and manual testing are at risk of automation.

As part of the review, Draup analyzed more than 1 million job descriptions of software development engineers. It found that debugging and judgment during code review are likely to remain essential, while writing routine code or remembering syntax could become less important.

A change for workers starting their careers

Draup found that employers are increasingly looking for workers who are familiar with AI tools, with many job description name checking tools like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Claude. They appeared in more than 60,000 listings for the nine job categories the company reviewed.

While the report found overall growth in demand for tech workers, the outlook for entry-level workers in the field is more complicated.

“Expectations for early hires are rising the fastest, because the routine tasks that young people once got their start in are the most automated,” the report says.

Draup said that could mean employers will need to “rethink traditional approaches to hiring, development and career progression.”

That could mean helping young workers develop their design, review and judgment skills over months, not years, in a position, Draup said.

The result, according to the report, is that employers “stop organizing technical talent around the tasks people perform today and start organizing around the skills that remain valuable when AI can perform those tasks.”

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