[ilirium]

One more reason why: there is no job for Juniors, Middle and Senior. Only such as 10+ years of experience with a narow specialization, this is not for Senior, it is for Senior++ ;)

2 decades ago, there were plenty of jobs for newcomers: shareware desktop apps for Windows, growing CAD/EDA/simulation tools, small and middle-sized games, and enterprise apps. Today there is no room for desktop apps for Windows, CAD/EDA/simulation seems stagnant, games require Unreal/Unity/Godot with their own languages, and enterprises used C# and Java.

Embedded C++ positions differ from "General C++ Senior++ Engineer". Yes, they are welcome for novices, but they use their own subset of C++ of an outdated language version, and you cannot grow with them, because the size of a project is small and after 10+ years you cannot be Senior++ with required rare specialization (and of course low salaries).

What else leaves for novices to get more experience? Only writing and supporting your own open-source project with a few users (or no user base at all) during a decade… So, it is not an option for many people.