AWS CEO Matt Garman confirmed that Amazon Web Services intends to hire 11,000 developers in 2026, positioning the move as an investment in AI and cloud infrastructure build-out. Garman simultaneously defended the broader industry trend of using AI to reduce headcount in other functions, drawing a distinction between roles being eliminated and those being created. The announcement is significant for hiring leaders: AWS is one of the few large tech employers actively expanding developer headcount at scale in a market defined by layoffs. It also signals that cloud-infrastructure and AI-platform engineering roles remain in strong demand even as the overall developer job market contracts, which has downstream implications for compensation benchmarks and sourcing strategies.