The numbers come from Indeed's Hiring Lab, relayed by CNBC. Software-development postings in the US are up almost 15% since late February 2025, even as total job postings fell 7% over the same stretch. The catch: they're still about 27.5% below where they sat before the pandemic, so this is a climb out of a hole, not a boom. Dig into who's getting hired and the picture narrows fast. Senior roles drove 71% of the increase between May 2025 and May 2026; postings that mention AI made up 37%, and the two groups overlap heavily. Indeed economist Sneha Puri's read is that firms still need people to supervise what the models write and wire the tools into real products. That's cold comfort if you're a new grad — employment among developers aged 22 to 25 has dropped roughly 20% from 2024, per Stanford's AI Index. The rebound is real. It just isn't for everyone.