Despite layoffs proliferating across the tech industry from players like HP and Cisco, the outlook remains strong for software engineers, and new sub-sectors like telecom may be on the rise in recruiting top-performing engineers, according to tech hiring platform Karat.

Karat’s research focuses on engineering hiring trends and dismantling interview bias to promote DE&I initiatives within tech. The company’s latest insight revealed that standard-meeting candidates interviewed by Karat has rebounded following a year of decline – now at 25% higher than normal.

Additionally, Karat’s insight found that the hiring close rates for large enterprises within sub-sectors such as telecom and banking are surpassing those from hyper-growth and start-up companies for the first time in several years.

Patrick Wu, a senior insights analyst at Karat, explained to SDxCentral that the telecom industry has historically been less competitive in landing top engineering talent, with only 18% of candidates coming from telecom being placed in the top quartile of global coding scores.

Wu added that this statistic was on par with several industries outside of tech like retail and financial services. Yet, “one encouraging trend for these industries is that we’re seeing preferences change with engineers over the past few months."

"Recently, the close rates for top candidates at large enterprises (big banks, insurance, credit cards companies, and telco) surpassed close rates in our [hyper-growth] segment,” Wu explained.

“These are the industries that now have an opportunity to hire top talent who may have been far less likely to close over the past [three or more] years. Doing so can help kickstart these industries and attempt to close the gap with more tech-forward verticals that are experiencing layoffs or hiring freezes.”