I’ve anecdotally observed the opposite. I have noticed SRE jobs remain posted, even by companies laying off or announcing some kind of hiring slowdown over the

I’ve anecdotally observed the opposite. I have noticed SRE jobs remain posted, even by companies laying off or announcing some kind of hiring slowdown over the last quarter or so. More generally, businesses that have decided that they need SRE are often building out from some kind of devops baseline that has become unsustainable for the dev team. When you hit that limit and need to split out a dedicated team, there aren’t a ton of alternatives to getting a SRE or two in and shuffling some prod-oriented devs to the new SRE team (or building a full team from scratch which is what the $$ was estimating above). Among other things, the SRE baliwick includes capacity planning and resource efficiency; SRE will save you money in the long term. On a personal note, I am sorry to hear that your job search has not yet been fruitful. Presumably I am interested in different criteria from you —- I have found several postings that are quite appealing to the point where I am updating my CV and applying, despite being weakly motivated at the moment.