Throughout my career—from my time at Maersk and Nike to working with clients across logistics and manufacturing—I’ve noticed something that always struck me as odd. Walk into any of these companies and you’ll find entire floors of software developers. Not a few tech people tucked away in IT, but whole teams writing code, building internal tools, and fixing integrations.
These aren’t tech companies. They move containers, design shoes, manufacture widgets. Yet they employ developers like they’re Google.
When did every company become a software company?
The Numbers Don’t Lie
When I looked into this, I wasn’t surprised but it was eye opening: globally, we have over 26 million software developers. In the U.S., that’s about 1.6 million people or roughly 1% of everyone working. Roughly half of them don’t work at Google, Microsoft, or startups. They work at banks, hospitals, shipping companies, and retail chains.
Think about that for a second. Companies that sell hamburgers or manage loans have as many developers as actual tech companies do.
Why Does Everyone Accept This?
In any other department, if you had 50 people who didn’t directly generate revenue, someone would be asking hard questions. But software teams get a free pass. Here’s what I think is really going on:
Everything Needs to Talk to Everything Else
Every company I visit runs on maybe 20+ different systems. Their accounting software doesn’t talk to their CRM. Their scheduling tool doesn’t sync with payroll. Their e-commerce platform lives in its own world. Someone has to build the bridges between all these systems, and that someone is usually a developer making $100k+ a year to write integration code.
I’ve seen companies where entire teams exist just to move data from System A to System B because the vendors couldn’t be bothered to build proper APIs.
“Strategic Infrastructure” is the Shield
Try suggesting to a CEO that they cut their IT development team, and watch what happens. Suddenly, these aren’t cost centers, instead they’re “strategic infrastructure” and “competitive advantages.” Nobody wants to be the executive who broke the company by cutting the wrong team.
It’s like a psychological blind spot. Companies will ruthlessly optimize their supply chain or outsource customer service, but mention reducing the internal dev team and everyone gets nervous.
The Competitive Pressure
Here’s what executives tell me: “We’re a platform company now” or “We’re really a technology company that happens to ship containers.” Maybe their rival built a better inventory system, or they have smoother partner integrations. So now everyone feels like they need their own army of developers to keep up.
Most of these “competitive advantages” aren’t that advantageous. But good luck convincing someone to be the first to scale back.
Cracks Are Starting to Show
I’m seeing signs this might not last forever. Developer employment actually peaked around 2019 and has been declining since. Even with all the AI hype, companies are getting pickier about their engineering headcount.
AI is currently accelerating this. I’m already seeing tools that can handle basic integrations without human developers. If you can point and click to connect your systems instead of paying someone $120k to write custom code, why wouldn’t you?
It’s All Just Expensive Plumbing
The problem isn’t that companies employ software people. The problem is that so much of what they’re doing is essentially plumbing work ie. connecting systems that should talk to each other but don’t.
It’s like if every office building needed to employ its own electricians because electrical outlets weren’t standardized. Eventually, someone figures out that outlets should just work the same way everywhere, and suddenly you don’t need an electrician on staff.
What Happens Next?
I think we’re heading toward three big changes:
Companies are going to consolidate tools instead of integrating dozens of separate ones. Why have 15 systems that need custom connections when you can have 3 that work together out of the box?
AI is going to handle the boring integration work. We’re already seeing this with tools that can automatically generate workflows and connections.
Executives are going to start asking harder questions about what actually needs to be custom-built versus what can be bought off the shelf.
A Reckoning Is Coming
Look, I’m not saying companies should fire all their developers tomorrow. But I do think we’re in for a reckoning. Software labor has been treated like a necessary evil… expensive but unavoidable.
The companies that figure out how to get the same results with smaller, more focused tech teams are going to have a real advantage. And the ones that keep throwing bodies at integration problems? They might find themselves at a serious disadvantage pretty quickly.
The question isn’t whether this will change. It’s how fast, and who’s going to be ready for it.
What You Can Do Now
If you’re running one of these companies with a bloated software team, here’s where to start:
Audit your integrations. Map out every system that needs to talk to another system. You’ll probably find that 80% of your custom code is doing basic data movement that could be handled by off-the-shelf tools.
Look at AI-powered integration platforms. Tools like Ngentix are already automating the kind of workflow connections that used to require full-time developers. Why pay someone $120k to write integration code when AI can generate it for you?
Stop building, start buying. Every custom tool you build is a tool you have to maintain forever. Unless it’s truly differentiating your business, find a vendor solution instead.
Set a integration budget cap. If you’re spending more than 20% of your tech budget on making systems talk to each other, you have a vendor consolidation problem, not a staffing problem.
The companies that act on this now will have a serious cost advantage. The ones that keep throwing developers at plumbing problems? They’re going to get left behind.