I'm frankly so tired of endless reports of the tight US labor market. Wouldn't talk much about non-software market, but last 5+ years were increasingly hard for

I'm frankly so tired of endless reports of the tight US labor market. Wouldn't talk much about non-software market, but last 5+ years were increasingly hard for software engineers in search of a job. It's rare these days to find one who's doing ok - maybe in FAANG they still do, if they're not downsized - at least in terms of parity with e.g. 5 years ago especially including inflation. All of that is about educated - B.Sc. or M.Sc. - engineers, with many years or even some decades of experience in roughly the same market, people who used to be technical leads and to their early adoption of promising technologies add wealth of practical knowledge. My guess is that hiring practices has changed. Even Y Combinator companies seem to hire by keywords, refusing even to talk with somebody who doesn't show nearly exact match. Many companies, including those who complain about inability to find competent workforce can't explain why they don't take a candidate after all those interview rounds, the answers at best look like just made plausible. If this is correct, we're not going to leave this state when there are much more positions advertised than people on the market - those positions are for unicorns of engineers, somebody who don't exist, and kept open in case Linus Torvalds (figuratively) will decide to apply. The companies are actually quite fine with keeping those positions open, which breaks the intended definition. Maybe we're on the verge of renaissance age of freelancers, where meaningful work can be done not only by companies, but solo engineers as well. It's definitely not only the recent round of Big Tech layoffs which explains the situation, as it was here way before that. > In addition, given the tightness of the labor market overall, workers who desire more hours could easily leave their current employer and find another job with longer hours. This is something which I'd like to be supported by evidence, not only by traditional opinion.