The Programmer Job Market in 2025: Bubble Burst or New Normal?

Over the past two years, the phrase «рынок программистов схлопнулся» (the programmer market has collapsed) has been repeated so often on career forums, Telegram channels, and coffee-machine conversations that it has almost become a cliché. But is the situation really that dramatic? Let's look at what has actually changed and what hasn't.

What the Numbers Say

In 2020–2022, the global tech industry went through an unprecedented hiring boom. Remote work unlocked access to a worldwide talent pool, venture capital flooded into startups, and salaries for mid-level engineers in Russia reached levels that were previously only achievable at FAANG companies or after emigration. According to data from hh.ru and Habr Career, the median salary for a backend developer in Moscow grew by roughly 40% between 2020 and 2022.

Then the corrections came. In 2022, a wave of layoffs swept through Western tech giants — Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft — totalling more than 200,000 positions globally. In Russia, the market was additionally disrupted by the departure of foreign companies and the partial mobilisation in autumn 2022. Many senior engineers relocated abroad, creating a paradoxical situation: a shortage of experienced specialists and simultaneously a glut of junior candidates.

The Junior Paradox

Perhaps the most striking symptom of the new market reality is what job-seekers at the entry level are experiencing. In 2021, a fresh graduate of a 6-month bootcamp could reasonably expect to find their first job within a month. In 2025, the same candidate may be sending out hundreds of applications and waiting for many months.

Why has this happened? Several factors converged:

• Supply explosion: The boom years attracted hundreds of thousands of people into retraining programmes. The market was flooded with junior candidates, most of whom trained on the same curricula and can solve the same LeetCode problems.
• Demand contraction: Companies grew cautious after the post-boom hangover. Many froze headcount or reduced team sizes. The «just hire, we'll figure it out later» mentality gave way to «justify every new position».
• AI-assisted productivity: Tools like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT made existing engineers more productive, reducing the need to hire junior staff for routine tasks.
• Increased bar: With hundreds of candidates per vacancy, recruiters could afford to be selective in ways they couldn't during the boom.

What About Mid and Senior Levels?

The picture for experienced engineers is more nuanced. Strong candidates with 5+ years of experience and a proven track record are still in demand. The problem is that the definition of «strong» has become stricter.

Companies now expect mid-level engineers to have a broader skillset — not just clean code but also an understanding of architecture, cloud infrastructure, and business context. The days when a developer could grow to a comfortable «senior» position by simply writing good Python for three years are largely over.

That said, certain domains remain chronically understaffed: information security, embedded systems, machine learning engineering (not data science, but the engineering side), and anything touching industrial automation or legacy modernisation.

Remote Work: Friend or Foe?

The remote-work revolution that benefited so many engineers in 2020–2021 has had some unexpected negative consequences in 2025. With the normalisation of remote work, Russian companies now compete not only with each other but with international employers for the same talent pool. A senior engineer in Novosibirsk who previously had few options beyond local employers can now work for a European or Israeli company from home.

This is great for those engineers — but it has also created salary pressure. Companies willing to hire internationally can often find equivalent talent at lower cost in countries with lower costs of living. Meanwhile, Russian engineers who relocated to places like Armenia, Georgia, or Serbia often continue working for Russian companies at Russian salaries, but now compete globally for better offers.

Is This a Bubble Bursting or a New Normal?

The honest answer is: probably both, and they are not mutually exclusive.

The years 2020–2022 were clearly anomalous. Salaries and hiring volumes reflected a unique combination of pandemic-era disruption, zero-interest-rate environment, and a genuine belief that every company needed to become a software company immediately. That specific configuration is unlikely to return.

But «back to normal» doesn't mean «back to 2019». Software development has genuinely become more central to business operations across every sector. The demand for competent engineers is real and structural — what has changed is the expectation of competence.

The new normal looks roughly like this: fewer jobs for juniors, higher bars for everyone, more selective hiring, and continued premium for genuine expertise. This is not a bubble bursting so much as an industry maturing.

Practical Takeaways

If you are a junior developer struggling to find your first job in 2025:

• A bootcamp certificate is no longer enough. You need a portfolio of real projects that solve real problems.
• Specialise early. «I know Python» is not a differentiator. «I've built and deployed a production ML pipeline on Kubernetes» is.
• Consider domains with genuine talent shortages: embedded, security, data engineering infrastructure.
• Open source contributions and a visible GitHub profile matter more than ever.

If you are a mid/senior developer reassessing your market position:

• Breadth matters. Knowing the business domain you work in is increasingly valued.
• Soft skills are no longer optional. The ability to lead, communicate, and estimate is what separates «senior» from «experienced mid».
• Stay current with AI tooling — not to be replaced by it, but to use it to multiply your own productivity.

Conclusion

The programmer job market of 2025 is harder than 2021 but not as bleak as the most pessimistic forecasters claim. It is a market that has grown up, one where real skills and genuine experience matter more than a certificate and enthusiasm. That might feel uncomfortable compared to the free-money era, but it is arguably healthier for the industry in the long run.