The market is not oversaturated today; there were a number of conditions in place during the pandemic that resulted in many companies hiring a large number of p

The market is not oversaturated today; there were a number of conditions in place during the pandemic that resulted in many companies hiring a large number of people who were, in reality, neither needed nor qualified. The hiring bar during that period was artificially lowered, quite steeply, and many people who could not pass a technical screening in the years before COVID were hired anyway, giving them a false sense of competency. The hiring bar during COVID is not reflective of the hiring bar that existed before COVID and that exists now. Hundreds of thousands have been laid off in the last couple years, many incompetent, some lazy, and a few competent and motivated ones who got unlucky. Market conditions today are reflective of the norm. I applaud your efforts to continue upskilling! Many people new to the field do not realize that continuous upskilling is a requirement in the technology industry, not a "bonus". As for skills in high demand - go read a bunch of open job listings! Inside of your skull is a sophisticated neural network that will start to notice commonalities between many of these positions, it will start to pick up on trends of which positions are becoming more or less common over time, etc. Sure you can look up a conclusion someone else came to, but if you don't enjoy rolling up your sleeves and doing the work yourself to collect and analyze data for a problem you're trying to solve, are you really in the right mindset for an SWE job to begin with? One last note - newcomers to the technology industry are often surprised how much we have "boom" and "bust" cycles every few years, but it's as impactful of an effect on job availability as it is in say, the oil industry. Early COVID was a big boom, late COVID/2023 was the big bust. We are on the upswing again, but slowly. Keep in mind that who you vote for this fall has massive ramifications on the federal reserve, and thus interest rates and liquidity, and thus the job market.