And both of those things are almost exactly what I see in the market. 1. Qualified people (ie. know useful tech skills and have actual, demonstrated experience

And both of those things are almost exactly what I see in the market. 1. Qualified people (ie. know useful tech skills and have actual, demonstrated experience with those skills) can find work. Yes, you sometimes have to go through painful tech interviews but if you're actually qualified it is easily possible to secure an offer 2. Salaries are indeed rising, as nearly any salary survey would tell you. Do you think Facebook/Google/Amazon are paying people hundreds of thousands of dollars a year just for the kicks? > low-paying open jobs would decrease in response to short supply That's the one part which is incorrect. If there is a shortage then open jobs should increase steadily over time, which is definitely what's happening. This is especially true because some companies just don't have a clue. So they'll leave up a bad position for months on end but never increase the pay, meanwhile complaining about the developer shortage. Both as a hiring manager and an engineer, the developer shortage is very evident. We consistently took a long time to find qualified candidates (despite paying a respectably high salary) and on the flip side I have had no problem at all lining up offers any time I've interviewed in the past few years. This does come with the caveat that the shortage is by far most acute in senior web-oriented engineers. There's no shortage of eager bootcamp graduates. If you don't have relevant experience on your resume or have crippling anxiety with technical interviews then your results will vary substantially.