Arm CEO needs ‘more engineers’ to drive AI growth

• Arm CEO Rene Haas said in a recent interview that he needs more engineers to drive AI growth.
• Companies are aggressively recruiting top AI talent, and some are offering lucrative compensation.
• Although artificial intelligence specialists are in high demand, other software developers have experienced layoffs amid cost cuts.

The AI ​​train is running full steam ahead, but Arm CEO Rene Haas believes there’s one thing they need to keep it moving: more engineers.

Finding enough talent is “one of the real limiters” to the company’s growth, Haas told Bloomberg in a recent interview.

“Our opportunity is vast,” he said. “We are in smartphones, PCs, cameras, cars, data centers, and all these solutions require more and more innovation. I need more engineers. We are trying to expand globally.”

Arm is a British semiconductor and software design company. According to a SEC Filing Earlier this year, approximately 83% of the company’s total 7,096 employees were involved in engineering activities in March, representing an increase from approximately 80% in 2023 and 75% in 2022.

“Competition for highly qualified personnel, and particularly engineers, can be intense,” Arm said in a section of the document on risk factors facing the business.

The comments from Arm and its CEO highlight how the rise of generative artificial intelligence following the launch of ChatGPT almost two years ago has led to a talent war for top AI engineers and researchers.

A limited pool of researchers and candidates with expertise in areas such as machine learning and data engineering has allowed AI talent to become more selective when evaluating job offers. Some tech giants have tried courts AI specialists with hefty compensation packages or personal contacts from CEOs like Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg.

Ram Srinivasan, expert on the future of work and CEO of the consulting firm JLL, previously told Business Insider that the high demand for AI talent has led to offers for top experts exceeding $1 million in total compensation.

“This competitive market is raising wages and offering attractive financial incentives for technology workers,” he said.

According to a PwC reportwhich analyzes 500 million job ads, positions requiring specialist AI skills can carry a pay premium of up to 25%. The research also indicated that growth in AI specialist positions has outpaced all jobs since at least 2016.

As technology companies rush to hire employees with AI expertise, other software developers are struggling not to be left behind amid industry-wide layoffs as companies look to cut costs and reallocate resources. Fact data showed a 45% decrease in job openings from December 2023 in the software development sector.

Competition among tech workers has toughened after the layoffs that swept the tech industry over the past two years following the pandemic’s hiring boom. According to the layoff tracker Layoffs.for your informationMore than 264,000 employees were laid off from 1,193 technology companies in 2023, almost 99,000 more than in 2022. So far in 2024, more than 141,000 employees have been laid off by 476 companies.

As of Monday, Arm had nearly 300 engineering-related positions open on its careers site.