[ghaff]

>Another interesting question is what will the collapse in share prices to do hiring and retention since equity is a massive (typically >50%) part of total compensation. Those who got hired last year in particular have seen a huge amount of paper value disappear.

Yes. At least at the large firms, the best case scenario is probably that effective overall comp has and will continue to take a huge haircut. And corresponding cost of living will not. In fact, pretty much the opposite. Even housing in high cost of living areas will probably be pretty sticky with respect to prices.

That said, there's little indication so far that things are in "would you like fries with that?" territory as they were in the tech sector (well beyond just engineering) as they were in ~2000 to 2003 when many people left the industry for good. I was laid off and was very lucky to land a (less well-paying) new job in short order. There weren't much in the way of nibbles.

There will probably be reasonably plentiful jobs. But comp will come down to earth commensurate with other branches of engineering for example.