The Monthly Beat - February '25 Edition
A recap of the most interesting Pittsburgh tech news from the past few weeks and upcoming local tech events.
Hey everybody! Hope you all stayed warm during this frigid January. I thought I was actually frostbitten on one of my fingers, but apparently I just have “poor circulation.”
Anyway, gather round the fire and let me tell ye the stories of the local tech scene. Visually, I’m thinking of the fire in the Count’s castle from the Nosferatu remake, and I’m recounting this to you in a dark, Transylvanian accent.
Here’s the latest:
What Happened this Past Month
The Big Story
The Pittsburgh Tech Job Market Continues to Tighten
It seems like everyone has been complaining about how difficult it is to get a tech job lately in Pittsburgh. Multiple threads on the r/pittsburgh subreddit this past month lamented a lack of opportunity locally, saying that finding a job is “damn near impossible” and that “companies are focused on H1-B hires and outsourcing.” Regarding the latter, I’ve heard rumors from folks that multiple local companies are planning to move jobs from Pittsburgh’s North Shore to a Near Shore (mostly Brazil.)
On top of that, companies tend to turn January and February into Layoff Season so as not to look cold and heartless by laying people off right before the holidays. Just in January, Highmark’s IT subsidiary EnGen laid off over 200 people, Niche has let 8 people go (in a mix of voluntary and involuntary departures) to continue its management restructure, and Amazon is forcing 400 workers at its facility out in Imperial to either transfer to another location or leave the company. So I thought it’d be good to visit what local statistics we have on the Pittsburgh job market from the good old U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A few important caveats: the data below is not seasonally adjusted, so there could be a seasonal element to this, the December data is preliminary, and January data is not yet available. Nevertheless, I think this could be helpful in explaining some of the recent malaise.
Here’s what Pittsburgh tech workers are experiencing in two charts:
Last year, the total unemployment rate dropped from a high of 4.2% in August to 3.2% in November (at the time of writing, we don’t yet have the December data.) That was a whole percentage point below the national average in November. A low unemployment rate means conditions are generally favorable for workers, but this number is not specific to the tech sector. In tech especially, this means employers will try to keep workers around for longer and/or get as much efficiency out of the employees they already have rather than hiring more, since hiring in such a market is difficult. But there’s also something else going on:
Based on preliminary data from BLS, the pool of jobs available in Pittsburgh’s tech-related sectors contracted slightly by 3,500 jobs in the second half of 2024. The BLS doesn’t really group jobs data into a “technology” bucket, so getting clear data on this can be a little tricky. But most tech jobs are spread across the Information and Professional and Business Services sectors, which I chose to highlight here. The Information Sector has only lost about 300 jobs, while Prof. and Bus. Services has lost about 3,200. So we’re not seeing a big drop in the number of jobs, but the lack of growth here could at least partially explain the difficulty of finding a new role locally in the past couple months. The JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for December, which will be released tomorrow, should tell us a little more.
This month, I will be doing some investigation into the rumors of offshoring/nearshoring in local companies, but even without that in the mix, my feeling is we can expect additional contraction this year as companies attempt to replace certain roles with AI. Thus, if you are considering switching jobs this year, my advice would be to start applying now. In the meantime, here are some links to localized resources for those of you in search of a new job:
The Code & Supply Job Board is regularly updated with new listings.
Pittsburgh Startup News links job listings at the bottom of posts
NEXTPittsburgh published a helpful piece on how to get a job in robotics in Pittsburgh.
This blog! I try to link related job openings in The Headlines when I see them, but if the market continues on this trajectory, I may also start a separate monthly post with just job openings. If this would be helpful for you, let me know in the comments!
The Headlines
Aurora is suing the federal government because their driverless trucks can’t put out cones. Current federal regulations require pulled-over trucks to put out cones or flares to help drivers avoid them, and the government said in December that Aurora is not exempt from these regulations. So if Aurora doesn’t win this lawsuit, they’ll either have to hire somebody whose whole job is to follow the trucks and set out cones when they pull over or shift development efforts over to Conebot (Note: I retain all creative license to the Conebot name for use in reference to a traffic cone-placing or ice cream cone-serving robot.) The company also announced a longterm strategic partnership with NVIDIA and Continental to deploy driverless trucks using NVIDIA chips. Aurora was already using NVIDIA chips, so this is really just them doubling down on their existing trajectory with a new chip made specifically for driverless systems.
SoftBank is reportedly dumping more money ($500B) into Skild AI. This comes as the company has posted a slew of job openings for a variety of roles in hopes of building robots that can think and do physical things like humans.
Continuing the local trend of shrinking office space, Google is moving out of two floors in Bakery Square. The company says it plans to continue its presence in Pittsburgh, but is “focused on investing in real estate efficiently to meet the current and future needs of [their] hybrid workforce.”
Niche.com acquired Canadian higher ed communications company Goodkind. The acquisition will allow Niche to integrate an AI-powered chatbot among other features into its platform. The terms of the acquisition remain undisclosed.
Supply chain AI startup Gather AI announced a partnership with Made4Net, a cloud-based warehouse management systems provider. The two companies already had shared customers in the warehousing space, so this partnership will build on their already complementary products to make warehouses better at, well, housing wares.
Pittsburgh coworking spaces are adjusting their business models in response to financial headwinds. Adjustments include making the spaces more reflective of today’s remote workers, who have better work-from-home setups and are typically going to a coworking space with the goal of connecting with other people.
Speaking of coworking, in case you missed it last week, I surveyed several local tech professionals on the best ways to survive Pittsburgh winters while working remotely and published a short guide here on the blog. Check it out and stay warm!
A group of local officials and business leaders have formed an “AI Strike Team” to apparently “strike” at potential funding that Trump announced for data center projects, backed by some of the usual suspects (OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank). We’ll see how successful their “striking” is in the coming months.
A new Pittsburgh startup called Blue Arrow is developing defense drone technology for Ukraine. Blue Arrow is a joint venture by Ukrainian company Sensorama and Larimer-based KEF Robotics. The company’s first drones will be deployed to the front line of the war next month.
Technical.ly published a great profile of a local high school program that’s teaching young women how to fly drones. The program, Fly Like a Girl Drone Academy, provides training for female high school students who are interested in obtaining an FAA Commercial Drone Certification. The program’s administrators hope that it will make inroads in the traditionally male-dominated aviation field and prepare students for jobs in the local drone industry.
On a final note here, I’m going to start trying to gather one or two opinion posts from other local tech professionals to share in these monthly posts. Here’s the first: local open source advocate Chad Whitacre shared his perspective on Elon Musk’s Fork in the Road email. While I disagree with his take on Twitter (I’ve long since migrated to BlueSky) it’s a short, poignant, and worthwhile read.
For the Days Ahead
AI at Work: Chapter 2 is this Wednesday at TechForge. I attended the first one, and it was a great place to learn how other local practitioners are making use of the latest tools and take part in discussion groups. The event is waitlist-only at this point, but you can sign up here if you’re interested (I’ll be there!)
Pittsburgh Robotics Network is hosting a happy hour on Southside this Thursday at Velum. Tickets are $20 for individuals.
Techstars Startup Weekend returns to Pittsburgh this weekend. The event aims to provide an environment for aspiring entrepreneurs to develop their business ideas with other builders, mentors, investors, co-founders and sponsors. Tickets are $25.
Having trouble making time to fulfill your New Year’s resolutions? Check out Confirmed, a locally owned and developed time manager/scheduler app. Plans start at $5/month for a single user, and you can get your first month free with offer code
techbeat
!As always, I’m looking for guest writers! Do you have a local Pittsburgh tech topic you’d like to wax poetic about? Hit me up! Spoiler alert: It’s not a paid gig, but I would be more than willing to host or repost your piece if you want to publish it somewhere else as well.
That’s all for now. See you in March!
Returns to coffin and dramatically shuts the lid with a poof of dust.
—Austin
Austin, thanks so much for your work with this newsletter! Your insights are helpful bits as I evaluate a move back to Pittsburgh.