Is Google Losing Its Appeal With Tech Talent in 2026?

Google still pays some of the highest salaries in tech and gives employees the chance to build products used by billions of people. Yet some of its employees are choosing to leave and it's not because the company has become an unbearable place to work.

The definition of a dream job in tech has changed over the years. Artificial intelligence has created a new race for talent, startup equity has become more attractive than corporate stock, and repeated layoffs have changed how many professionals think about career security.

Google doesn't feel untouchable anymore

For most of its history, Google was seen as one of the safest places to work in technology. Between its founding in 1998 and 2022, large-scale layoffs were virtually unheard of. That changed in 2023, when the company cut about 12,000 jobs, nearly 6% of its workforce. Since then, Google has continued restructuring parts of the business as it redirects more investment toward AI.

Its reputation among job seekers has shifted too. Employer branding firm Universum ranked Google as the world's most attractive employer for business students for more than a decade before Apple overtook it in 2022. In the United States, Google has fallen from first place in 2023 to fifth in Universum's latest rankings, though it is still rated the top employer among IT students.