AI's Divergence in Software Engineering Pay and Jobs

The software job market is splitting in two. At the very top, a small cadre of AI specialists is being courted with extraordinary salaries and fierce competition, as companies treat elite talent as a strategic asset worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. For everyone else, hiring has slowed sharply, with layoffs and shrinking job listings reflecting the productivity gains promised by generative AI. In this episode, we explore how this widening gap is reshaping what it means to be a programmer, why most developers are increasingly viewed as a cost rather than a necessity, and how the future of the profession may lie less in writing code than in building—and guiding—the machines that do.https://www.economist.com/business/2025/07/01/superstar-coders-are-raking-it-in-others-not-so-much