> Maybe it's because of the advent of self taught engineers? I doubt it. I'm self-taught I don't think I do any of this. Some of the worst engineers I've ever

> Maybe it's because of the advent of self taught engineers? I doubt it. I'm self-taught I don't think I do any of this. Some of the worst engineers I've ever worked with were those fresh out of a comp sci course. I find ability in this field comes with time and one's effort, not educational background – it simply takes a lot of time and effort to be a good engineer. I think what you're noticing is likely the result of the average Covid-era software engineering hire. I've spoken about this in other comments, but there was such massive demand for software engineers during the pandemic that companies were forced to lower standards to the point where almost anyone who had written code at some point in their lives could get a job fairly easily. I'm a contractor so tend to work at companies with quite large contractor numbers and over the last year I noticed a lot of these crappy Covid hires were no longer getting contract renewals and were not being rehired. It's mostly normalised for me now and I'm back to working with people who are competent again. However, if you were at a company that hired a lot of new permanent employees during Covid then I'm assuming that's going to be a drag that lasts years unless the company is letting those Covid hires go. Over the last decade I'd say the quality of the average software engineer has improved quite a bit. But my perspective of the average software engineer could be quite biased.