[ravingraven]

>But it's been that way forever in tech companies: SWE make enormous amounts of money and can control their work + environment a lot.

This has certainly not been true since for ever and is only partially now. Only a small minority of developers make enormous amounts of money and there are plenty of shitty companies that do not give you any control whatsoever.

That being said, I do not disagree that part of it is due to the boom-bust cycle of markets, but yeah, managers "coordinate" in a sense that there is a zeitgeist and a common understanding of what the atmosphere is.

They hired people when it was beneficial (note that I am not using the word "profitable" here) for them to do so and now they are firing because that is the new beneficial thing. Keep in mind that managers do not pay you out of their pocket.

A pure market-driven downsizing wave usually touches the C-level too.