SignalFire data shows marketing hiring at big tech down 36% while engineering fell just 11%. The gap says marketing is being asked to prove its commercial worth more than ever.
Marketing is being cut harder than the functions around it. The roles that survive will be the ones that can show a number.
New data shows marketing hiring at big tech companies has fallen 36%, while engineering roles dropped just 11% over the same window. The numbers come from SignalFire's State of Talent Report, drawn from its Beacon AI hiring platform.
The pattern runs across the creative and brand functions. Design hiring fell 48% at major tech firms and 22% at startups. Product management dropped 39%. Marketing fell 36% at the majors and 18% at startups. Attrition tells the same story, with marketing at 12.2% and engineering at 9.2%. The data covers in-house roles and excludes agency and search work.
Why it matters
This is a US big-tech dataset, but the message travels. When budgets tighten, marketing gets cut before engineering, because engineering can point to what it built and marketing too often cannot. The function that struggles to prove its commercial contribution is the function that looks optional when the numbers get hard.
That is the uncomfortable lesson for Australian marketers watching from a distance. The roles being protected are the ones tied directly to output and revenue. Marketing has spent years being treated as a doing function rather than a thinking one, and this is what that costs when the spreadsheet gets reviewed.
Marketing roles cut at big tech versus engineering roles over the same window (SignalFire State of Talent)
What to do about it
Tie your work to revenue, not activity. The marketers who survive a cut are the ones who can show what their work returned.
Know your own numbers. If you cannot say what you spend and what it makes, you are the easy line to cut.
Stop reporting outputs. Impressions and posts published are activity. Pipeline, revenue and retention are the language that protects a budget.
Build the commercial case before you are asked for it. The time to prove marketing earns its place is before the review, not during it.
Invest in measurement now. You cannot defend a contribution you never measured.
The marketers who come through this stronger will be the ones who treat commercial literacy as part of the job, not a finance problem they get to avoid.