[twright]

I've been out of tech for as long as OP, a single thing from my experience so far:

- Stronger requirements regarding specific frameworks and languages.

Generically, five years ago it felt like you could be an all around good engineer in some domain and be a good candidate in an adjacent domain. Today, it seems that you need to be completely up to date on the language in addition to all the best practices, build tools, and _all-in_ on a very specific set of libraries and frameworks. A candidate with any deviation is rejected.

Economics tells us it's because of a tighter labor market but in a way it says to me there's less room for learning and creativity.