If you are a fresh graduate asking what to learn to get a job in tech, my honest answer has changed. And you won’t like it.
I have run a software company since 2020.
Here is what I see at Uptech Sol. Demand for technology is not lower. Demand for developers and engineers is.
A project that needed ten engineers now needs one. And that one can do it better, because AI does a lot of the work and the engineer oversees it.
Work that took my team 3 to 6 months with 4 to 5 developers can now be done by a single developer in 3 to 4 weeks. Max.
The work we used to give juniors is now the work AI does first.
And these are not just my feelings.
According to P@SHA, entry-level hiring at major tech companies in Pakistan has fallen by around 25%. Employment of developers aged 22 to 25 is down nearly 20% since 2024.
Read that again. The first step of the ladder is the one disappearing.
Basic websites. Simple apps. Manual testing. That was how every junior started. Now it is a prompt.
But there is another side. A junior can now do what a senior used to do. Only if they actually understand engineering, software and coding. If you know nothing, AI gives you nothing.
I know this better than most. It is one of the reasons I moved from software to education. What I spent years learning stopped being rare.
So What Should A Fresh Grad Learn Now?
Not “one more language.” Not one more Udemy certificate to put on LinkedIn.
Here is what I would tell my own younger self:
- Learn the fundamentals, properly. Engineering, software, coding. AI multiplies what you know. Zero multiplied by anything is still zero.
- Learn to use AI, properly. Not copy-paste. Read the code it writes, test it, find where it is wrong. The person who can check AI is worth more than the person who just asks it.
- Understand the business, not just the code. Clients don’t pay for code. They pay for a problem solved. Ask why before you ask how.
- Go deep in something. Cloud, cybersecurity, AI integration, a specific industry. “I know a bit of everything” is exactly what AI also knows.
- Learn marketing. This is the biggest skill everyone should have today. Products used to take long to build. Funding rounds. A separately hired marketing team. Now one person can build 4 to 5 products in a month and launch one in days. If you know marketing, you can earn more than companies that have been in the market for one or two decades.
- Learn to talk. Writing, explaining things to a non-technical person. AI can’t sit in front of a client and build trust.
- Build real things. A small project people actually use beats ten tutorial clones.
If You Are Still Studying
Don’t wait for the degree to finish. Start now.
Use your semester projects to build something real, then try to put it in front of real users. Learn to write about it, post about it, sell it. That is marketing, and nobody will teach you if you don’t start.
And universities and institutes need to catch up. I run an institute now, so I say this to myself too.
Teach students to use AI, not hide it from them. Teach them to check its work. Keep the fundamentals strong, because without them AI is useless. And teach marketing and communication alongside code, not as an elective nobody takes.
Yeh sun ke bura lagta hai, I know. You spent four years and lakhs on a degree.
But the degree was never the job. It was the ticket to try.
The market doesn’t owe anyone a job because they have a CS degree. It pays the people who can do what AI can’t, or who can make AI do more.
Don’t be the person AI replaces. Be the person who uses it better than everyone else in the room.
– Umar H.
Sources: P@SHA figures as reported by Arab News and The Express Tribune.
