Every week we see another headline about AI replacing jobs. White-collar coding, content work, customer support, all of it being automated, restructured, or quietly thinned out. We hear from veterans in our community who read that noise and start to wonder if the door to tech is closing right as they reach for it. It is not. And we want to walk you through why. A new wave of research and hiring data from early 2026 shows the opposite of what the headlines suggest. The AI boom