By Maria Kalamatas | July 4, 2025
Lisbon, July 4 — As supply chains become increasingly data-driven, logistics technology firms are hitting a wall: not from lack of innovation, but from a shortage of people capable of making that innovation real. Across Europe, Asia, and South America, companies developing AI-powered logistics platforms are scrambling to hire skilled engineers — and often coming up short.
“We’re not facing a lack of ideas,” says Katarina Meier, director of engineering at a mid-sized freight software firm in Hamburg. “We’re facing a lack of minds trained to turn those ideas into working code, especially when it comes to logistics-specific AI.”
A rising wave of demand, with too few paddlers
The surge in demand for AI tools — from predictive ETAs to anomaly detection in customs flows — has caught much of the logistics sector off guard. Companies that once outsourced their IT are now racing to build in-house teams, only to find themselves competing with fintechs, healthcare, and defense sectors offering double the salaries.
Some mid-tier logistics firms are even losing staff they’ve just trained.
“We spent six months onboarding a brilliant developer in Kraków,” shared Luis Aranda, founder of a Spanish visibility platform. “Then Google snatched him up before he even finished his second project.”
A change in recruitment mindset
Faced with this exodus, several firms are turning their hiring strategies upside down. Instead of targeting logistics engineers with AI expertise — a rare hybrid — they’re hiring talented AI engineers and teaching them logistics from scratch.
In Malaysia, one platform now embeds its new tech hires in field operations for two months before they touch a single line of code.
“It’s the only way they’ll understand the stakes — delayed pallets, rerouted trucks, expired goods,” said Nadiah Farouk, product manager at LogiSphere Asia. “We’re not coding for clicks. We’re coding for continuity.”
Logistics gets serious about AI
To secure long-term capacity, industry associations are lobbying governments for AI scholarships tied to logistics. In Sweden, a recent proposal would fund 200 AI master’s placements — but only for students who commit to the logistics sector for three years after graduation.
Private investors, too, are catching on. A Zurich-based fund just backed four early-stage logistics tech startups, allocating 30% of capital to tech team development and retention.
“The future of freight won’t be decided in boardrooms — it’ll be shaped in GitHub repos and terminal consoles,” said Bruno Keller, managing partner at Alpine Freight Ventures.
