20% AI software devs hired 2025 ex-employees

As the AI ​​talent war heats up between companies like OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic, one way Google competition is through aggressive rehiring of former employees.

About 20% of the software engineers working on artificial intelligence that Google is hiring in 2025 are boomerang employees, CNBC has learned; This rate is an increase compared to previous years. A Google spokesperson confirmed the statistic remained accurate as of December and said the company was seeing an increase in the number of AI researchers from major rivals compared to 2024.

“We are driven by our momentum, computing power and talent; engineers want to work here to continue developing breakthrough products,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

John Casey, Google’s head of compensation, recently informed employees about the rehiring at a meeting. Casey said AI-focused software engineers are attracted to Google’s deep pockets and the powerful computing infrastructure needed to perform advanced AI work, according to the audio recording reviewed by CNBC.

Google has a large pool of former employees, especially after the biggest layoffs in early 2023, when parent company Alphabet cut its headcount by 6% by laying off 12,000 people. This follows a market downturn caused by rising inflation and rising interest rates. Google has continued with layoffs and acquisitions ever since.

Employee boomerangs are on the rise across the industry data Data published by ADP Research earlier this year and classified as information showing the sharpest figures about the sector.

Google is racing to catch up with generative AI after a slow start after OpenAI launches ChatGPT in late 2022. After failing to launch a number of products, the company rebounded this year thanks to major investments in AI infrastructure and the success of its Gemini app. Google announced its latest model, Gemini 3, last month.

Alphabet’s stock price is up over 60% this year, outperforming all its megacap peers.

Historically a hotbed of engineering and innovation, Google has long been a place where competitors seek to poach talent. This is still the case.

Microsoft hired nearly two dozen employees from Google’s DeepMind AI research lab earlier this year, CNBC reported in July. Meanwhile, OpenAI has also expanded its wallets along with Meta. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said He told employees in June that Meta offered a $100 million signing bonus and was aggressively trying to retain staff.

Late last year, Google brought back a major name in the field of artificial intelligence: Noam Shazeer.

Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas left Google in 2021 to launch AI platform Character.AI. reportedly He took off after Google rejected his attempts to get the company to push its internal chatbot forward.

Shazeer and De Freitas, along with other members of the Character.AI research team, rejoined DeepMind in August 2024 under a licensing agreement for the startup’s technology.

Last year, Google took more risks and shipped products faster, even if they weren’t considered fully ready. Google has also launched a companywide effort to cut red tape, enacting widespread employee buyouts and eliminating more than a third of its managers who oversee small teams, CNBC reported in August.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who retired in 2023, occasionally personally contacted potential candidates and recruited them, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also reportedly He reached out to researchers on behalf of his company.

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