The job market is bad because a lot of people joined tech when there was a lot of open roles (and a lot of SV money). The money has returned to its pre-bubble level, so there's fewer jobs. But the same number of people looking for work as during the bubble when they switched careers. Most of those new workers lack deep skills, so the existing jobs are going unfilled. Most of the listings I see now are for senior and above.
Another problem is management attitudes towards hiring. They are switching their capricious attention and investment towards AI [1] and off shore to save costs [2, 3].
The combination of all this is making for an ugly combo of negativity. Tech used to be a lot more fun, even before the SV ZIRP hysteria.
