This "shortage" talk is the problem with engineers. They take peoples' opinions and petty desires (such as business requirements and deadlines that are arbitrar

This "shortage" talk is the problem with engineers. They take peoples' opinions and petty desires (such as business requirements and deadlines that are arbitrary) and assume them to be objective truth. I worked at a startup that was cargo-culting Scrum (badly) and people started talking about "Iterations" as if they existed objectively and had real, phallic, meaning. They don't. Engineers insist on truth and struggle with the fact that most people who succeed in human affairs are extremely dishonest. "Shortage" just means, "we can't hire talent at as low a wage as we'd like to pay". It is not an objective condition. It might qualify as a true shortage if companies were reducing the pay of executives and non-techs to make space for engineers, but that is happening almost nowhere.