Computer Science Grads Have a New Dream Job — And It’s Not Working for Meta, Apple or Google

For years, the default job goal for computer science majors in college was a high-paying role at Google, Meta or another tech giant. Now, a growing number of graduates are reorienting their ambitions. Instead of working for FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) after college, they are taking a risk and starting their own companies. 

Several forces are converging to make “founder” the new dream job on campus. First, the traditional pipeline from a computer science degree to a big-tech job has weakened. Hiring has slowed down, and automated tools have reduced the need for large junior engineering teams. 

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that for many graduates, starting a new venture feels like the rational choice when confronted with months of unanswered applications or rescinded offers. 

Additionally, AI tools have lowered the cost of shipping a minimum viable product, allowing small teams to create products that once required entire departments. In this environment, the founder path looks less like an outlier and more like a competitive option for ambitious computer science graduates who want to take control of their careers. 

One recent graduate, Tejas Prabhune, graduated last month from the University of California, Berkeley, with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science. He told the Journal that he chose to bet on himself and start a new machine learning startup instead of working at a startup or a big AI company. 

“You get agency, you get speed, you get to work closely with the people you like,” Prabhune told the Journal about the positives of entrepreneurship. “I believe I’ve made a difficult, somewhat irrational decision, and regardless of the difficulty, we’ll keep our heads down and focus on building our company.”

What the data shows

A new report from venture firm SignalFire, viewed by the Journal, analyzed the LinkedIn profiles of more than 10,000 Bachelor’s degree recipients each year. The report found that the percentage of computer science graduates who identified as founders doubled from 2.9% in 2022 to 6% in 2025. 

Stanford University had the largest share of 2025 computer science graduates who became founders, at almost 17%. Caltech and Harvard came next, with a bit more than 8% of their 2025 computer science graduates starting companies.

SignalFire’s head of research, Asher Bantock, posited that more new graduates are becoming entrepreneurs partly because it is harder to get hired. About 13% of the 2025 computer science graduates work as software engineers at the 12 biggest tech companies, down from almost 25% of the 2022 class, he noted. 

Hiring for recent graduates with a year or less of experience has dropped sharply at both big tech companies and startups, a trend SignalFire calls a “junior lockout.” In 2025, only 3% of new hires at early-stage companies were entry-level workers, compared with 15% a decade ago, per SignalFire. 

At the same time, venture investors are increasingly backing more young entrepreneurs.

“We’ve been backing more dropouts and recent grads than ever this year,” Jeremy Fiance, the founder and managing partner of venture firm House Fund, told the Journal. 

For years, the default job goal for computer science majors in college was a high-paying role at Google, Meta or another tech giant. Now, a growing number of graduates are reorienting their ambitions. Instead of working for FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) after college, they are taking a risk and starting their own companies. 

Several forces are converging to make “founder” the new dream job on campus. First, the traditional pipeline from a computer science degree to a big-tech job has weakened. Hiring has slowed down, and automated tools have reduced the need for large junior engineering teams. 

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that for many graduates, starting a new venture feels like the rational choice when confronted with months of unanswered applications or rescinded offers.