Ryon Baldwin-Williams did everything right.
Growing up in Detroit, he taught himself to build websites as a hobby. At Michigan State University’s engineering school, he stacked internships—software analyst at Accenture, software engineering intern at Rocket Companies—and even worked in the career services office so he could master the game of résumés, networking, and interviews. He graduated in 2025 with a computer engineering degree and a spreadsheet tracking every application.
Then the spreadsheet hit 100 rejections. He deleted it.
More than a year later, the 23-year-old still doesn’t have a full-time tech job. He pays the bills freelancing websites and apps for fashion brands, becoming “the tech guy” in local creative circles. It’s not the career he planned. It’s the one the market left him.
His story is no longer rare. For decades, engineering was sold as the ultimate safe major: rigorous, high-paying, recession-resistant. Parents steered kids toward it. Guidance counselors nodded approvingly. The data once backed them up. But exclusive LinkedIn numbers shared with Forbes paint a different picture for the Class of 2025 and 2026. While overall hiring of new graduates dropped 20% between December 2019 and April 2026, engineering majors saw the steepest decline of any major group on the platform—25%. Education and health professions fell only 16%.
The salaries, when you can get them, still look strong. The National Association of College and Employers projected average starting pay above $81,000 for 2026 engineering and computer science grads, well ahead of business, social sciences, and communications. But that “if” has become a canyon. Artificial intelligence is rewriting the demand curve faster than universities can rewrite curricula.
The Cascade Effect
Tech companies alone announced 139,156 job cuts in the first half of 2026, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas—nearly a third of all announced layoffs across industries. The dominant stated reason: AI-driven restructuring, automation, and budget shifts toward new capabilities. Experienced workers, nervous about their own positions, are clinging tighter to the roles they have. Fewer openings cascade down to new graduates.
“There was a time where we told everyone to code, and we thought that was a very safe role,” says Kory Kantenga, LinkedIn’s Head of Economics, Americas. “And now we see for folks who graduate with computer science degrees, unemployment is relatively elevated.”
The Versatility Trap
Other majors have long been forced into flexibility. LinkedIn data shows more than two-thirds of English, communications, and performing arts graduates from 2022–2024 took jobs outside their core industries. Engineers, by contrast, have tended to stay narrower—and that specialization is now a liability in a market that rewards adaptability.
Aerospace and chemical engineering have been hit hardest, with hiring down 26% each and low versatility scores. Civil engineering has fared better (down only 16%), partly because construction is booming around data centers and energy transition projects, and partly because civil engineers can move fluidly inside their industry—project manager, field engineer, project engineer. Field engineering roles are actually up from pre-pandemic levels. Automation engineering, which involves designing systems that use AI, is also growing.
Software engineers sit somewhere in the middle. Hiring in pure tech is down sharply, but their skills transfer more readily. Companies outside Silicon Valley still need people who can implement AI tools and translate them for non-technical teams—provided those engineers can communicate.
The new imperative, Kantenga argues, is simple and uncomfortable: “How do I take the skills that I got from that major and apply them to another area or another field within engineering more broadly?”
How Elite Schools Are Adapting
The strongest programs are treating the disruption the way engineers treat any complex problem—by redesigning the system.
Georgia Tech, a consistent presence on Forbes’ “New Ivies” list of employer-favorite schools, has stopped pretending the old model still works. Students no longer walk into 15 interviews and 15 offers. Instead, the school is building resilience. An AI minor launched in 2024 spans engineering, business, and liberal arts. Soft skills are no longer an afterthought. One professor created AI-powered avatars that role-play venture capitalists demanding elevator pitches or technical reviewers grilling product designs. The goal, says Matthieu Bloch, associate dean for academic affairs, is to make students “better engineers, not just technically, but better at all the things that matter when working in a team in the workforce.”
Case Western Reserve University tells a similar story. Dean Susan Hagness notes that many engineering students deliberately take philosophy and other humanities courses. Employers still value the human intelligence AI cannot replicate. Of the 2025 graduates who sought permanent jobs, 98% landed full-time roles within three months. Among engineers, 23% started above $100,000. The school now pushes students to begin searching ten months before graduation and to stay open to consulting, healthcare, and finance—not just traditional engineering tracks.
“We’re teaching our students to think critically and to be creative and to solve problems,” Hagness says. “And that’s always been in high demand across all industry sectors.”
The New Reality Check
Engineering has not suddenly become a bad major. It remains one of the highest-paying paths when the door opens. But the old guarantee—study hard, learn to code or design systems, and the market will reward you—has expired. AI is both eliminating some technical roles and creating demand for people who can bridge technical systems and human organizations. The graduates who thrive will be those who treat their degree as a foundation rather than a finished product: who pair great technical skill with communication, cross-domain curiosity, and the willingness to apply engineering thinking outside the traditional silos.
Ryon Baldwin-Williams is already living that shift. He still wants the full-time software role. In the meantime, he is building something else with the same skills—websites and apps for creative businesses that need technical talent but never would have appeared on a conventional engineering job board.
The market has changed. The question for the next generation of engineers is whether they will change with it.