Everyone is talking about AI this and AI that. I think the more pressing job market pressure is from there being way too many graduates due to increased interest in the field from the general population. I TA at a university and I see the current crop of CS students and the demographics have changed a lot.
Have you noticed the base level knowledge change? I talked with a second year CS student a while back who didn't know how to ping another host, and it really made me wonder if new students are choosing CS because it seems cool (versus _back in my day_ when we were all geeks who took CS because we lived and breathed it all day in life anyway).
I got into CS because I liked games. I wouldn't know how to ping a host by year 2, in fact, I hated CS and only finished it because my father insisted.
Wasn't until I got my first internship by year 4 that I started to work/enjoy it, and have had a very successful career so far (20y in)
