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Persistence and adaptability sum up the NSS experience in 2025. Over the last year we saw the continuation of the two market trends that have dragged on our ability to generate impact on our community. We’ve persisted for three years in the face of those trends - we’re still focused on our mission to create opportunities for adults with potential and desire to gain the skills to start careers in tech. But we have also adapted and found new ways to execute on our mission. So while the market trends are resulting in less impact as measured by our traditional metrics, our new initiatives are creating impact in new ways.
The two market trends we’re experiencing are a) a weak job market for entry-level tech talent and b) a significant decline in applications for our bootcamps. The overarching theme tying both of these trends together is uncertainty. And uncertainty from multiple sources. Employers to a large degree are, as one CTO friend has said, “hunkered down” - it’s uncertainty over the economy, healthcare policy, inflation/interest rates, war, and more that are creating caution in some or all industries, depending upon the issue. Employees are also hunkered down to a greater degree than we’ve seen for a very long time and are not changing jobs at traditional rates, which in turn reduces jobs that become open for new hires. All of these sources of uncertainty impact decision-making by prospective career changers who otherwise might apply to an NSS bootcamp.
The weak job market for entry-level or junior talent is most true for new software developers. While job postings for intermediate to senior talent are recovering, the posting levels for junior talent remain low. It’s no secret that recent computer science graduates also are suffering in this job market. The same problem continues to impact opportunities, although less so this past year, for entry-level data analytics talent. In fact, we saw almost exactly the same number of placements of graduates from our data analytics / data science programs in 2025 as there were in 2024.
Job postings being weak does not mean opportunities are non-existent - there are junior jobs out there. But there are fewer of them than there used to be which in turn translates into longer job searches. Longer job searches increase the risk that perfectly talented junior developers become frustrated by the longer job search process and drift away despite their investment in skills, whether from NSS or from a degree program. We’ll come back to that point later.
The second market trend is the significant decline in applications for our bootcamps. The uncertainty around entry-level job opportunities in tech means that there simply aren’t enough people that see now as the right time to make an investment in the skills for a new career in tech. We talked last year in this report about how we proactively reduced maximum class sizes to match with job placements in the prior year so as to avoid saturating the job market for junior talent. We continue to use placement levels on a trailing twelve month basis as a benchmark for new enrollment levels; however, at this point application levels are falling below even those reduced targets.
Hanging over all of this is uncertainty associated with AI, especially generative AI and its impact on tech jobs like those NSS trains people for. This is not the place for a deep dive into what we believe is going to happen over the next few years in tech but we believe the hype cycle has created much more uncertainty than will prove to have been warranted relative to the ongoing value of software developers, data analysts, data scientists, data engineers and others who solve problems using code.
Since we can’t control the market conditions and relieve the uncertainty, we pursued new ways to make an impact. A key part of this year's adaptation was the realization of our Protect The Tech Talent Pipeline (ProTech) initiative, which started as a way to support our graduates during longer job searches. Partially funded by two significant grants, ProTech provides free professional development classes to trained adults with relevant credentials - as well as to tech professionals who have been laid off - who are searching for their first or next job in tech. Relevant credentials include an NSS program certificate, as well as degrees in fields such as computer science, computer information systems, data analytics, etc.
ProTech was very successful in its first year of operation, even after allowing for a few months to ramp up and create new upskilling programs for software engineers, data analysts/scientists, data engineers, etc. In 2025 we had almost 250 enrollments in ProTech classes where students expanded their skills and were given opportunities to use new technologies to gain hands-on experience, including chances to learn to augment their productivity with generative AI agents. ProTech continues through October 2026 under the initial grants and we are searching for ways to extend the program into 2027.
The current moment is both challenging and exciting. As an industry, we’re learning how to fundamentally transform aspects of how we create, maintain, and deliver software-based solutions. Over the past 3 years, the evolving impact of AI has created uncertainty that compounds all of the other uncertainties, like the economy, war, etc., and contributed to slashing the hiring of junior talent. In the longer term, we believe it is becoming clear that this change will create new opportunities for the future in terms of careers in data and software.
Below we break down our 2025 impact numbers and how we’re adapting to support our graduates.
