I suspect it's been that way for a while. I graduated with Electrical and Computer Engineering degrees last century plus several years, with a schedule to go i

I suspect it's been that way for a while. I graduated with Electrical and Computer Engineering degrees last century plus several years, with a schedule to go into the AF about a year later. No one wanted to hire me as an EE for "such a short time", but one crusty old NASA aeronautical engineer, who told me to "stay the hell away from this field you'll die from neglect" and to play up my software skills. First phone call pitching my coding skills and got an interview and offer on the phone in 15 minutes, drove over and went to work after lunch writing a custom assembly language application that took six months. It worked too and made the company a lot of money, and the boss told me to do whatever I wanted for the rest of the time I was there.