[throw1234651234]

We were in a complete bubble the last couple of years. If you didn't work before the bubble, your perception of reality is entirely skewed. The mania was due to two things - tech companies outperforming everything else on the SP500 and easy credit for start ups. The response was over-hiring, a huge number of bootcamp grads, and everyone who could pivoting to an IT degree. Worries about the economy (record debt, etc) are just the icing on top of the tech over-saturation cake. Other, way overstated bubble is "AI destroying jobs". It's not reality, but the perception is there.

In short, it probably won't recover to bubble territory in the next 20 simply due to the huge supply of devs. On the other hand, the field does require some education, some IQ threshold, some persistence, etc, so there will be ok-paying jobs for a while. But again, if you started working circa 2021-2023, you will need to adjust your expectations.

[ghaff]

Too many dumb ideas were overfunded (or funded at all). A lot of the bigger tech companies got into an overhiring and overpaying competition. And, as you say, companies are just being cautious for the future.

And it really goes beyond 2021-2023. The tech job market for the last decade or more has not been normal in the sense that tech jobs, especially on the US west coast (though also quantitative trading), have paid well out of line with pretty much every other STEM position which was not historically the case. When I was a product manager back in the day, I'm pretty sure the computer system hardware and software people were paid pretty comparably as I probably was as well.

I think there are questions about where adtech goes. If it has a major downturn, some companies are going to really feel it.