To add, I don't think it's usually so much that the buzzwords are useless things to learn or nebulous (though some probably are both), but it's that companies a

To add, I don't think it's usually so much that the buzzwords are useless things to learn or nebulous (though some probably are both), but it's that companies aren't willing to pay employees to learn the buzzwords on the job (or even figure out which subset is actually relevant to the job--YAGNI is a useful heuristic here). They'd rather instead complain about CS programs being inadequate. Then when CS programs half-assedly try to change into learn-this-software dev-mills, they get complaints from another side of the field that they're skipping out on important theoretical background that good programmers tend to have even if they don't use it much. There are a lot of advertisements offering jobs only to people with "10+ years experience in X" (sometimes "X" hasn't even been a thing for that long), and assuming that means professional experience, that rules out almost everyone younger than 32. And for specific "X", it can rule out people even older if the "X" isn't what a recent graduate started getting their professional experience in right away. Some of those companies might also offer junior jobs with junior pay, but there are all these startups elsewhere offering higher-than-junior pay plus equity plus (depending on the size) a feeling of larger influence and control without the stress of running a company yourself. I'm not sure I agree with you on ignoring buzzword-laden fields since there's usually a lot of money to be made, even if only in the short term. Though it's probably best not to greedily expand your employment options in the direction of the latest buzz.