Comment by root_axis

IMO the issue is even more fundamental than the article presents. The software product market is approaching a saturation point. All the low hanging fruit has been commoditized, so buying something off the shelf is now generally preferable to having engineers on your staff. After the pandemic hiring spree, even the big tech companies realized they didn't have enough productive work for all these engineers. The effect is compounded by the return to normal interest rates, so investors are no longer desperate to dump their cash into every random startup idea. Ultimately, software engineers aren't going away, but the era of desperate need is over for good.