Can you explain your insight on why you thought programming would be an unattractive field to work in in 2004, where wages would become much less, like they are for auto mechanics? Since the 1980s at least software has been probably the leading factor in increasing business performance, efficiency, and automation. I guess in 2000 there was the dot com implosion but after that there were always lots more demand than there were devs, there's really been a shortage of devs my professional life over 25 years except maybe 2001 and 2008. I used to worry that there would be an infinite series of much cheaper software engineers worldwide, taking my job for less page. I think there is enough work for all the tech workers in the world, plus many things are easier with local engineers, like product discussions and evaluation of quality. But there are great engineers all over the world, of course. Maybe we've had better university training in the us but I don't see that anymore, the people I work with from india and china are first rate.

Just write some code, some toy problems, find something that is fun and go from there. And yes, software engineers face constant recruitment, daily recruiter spam on linked in. It's been a crazy hiring environment for 10 years, even worse. Everyone you try to hire has a job already (that's where the negative comes in), college students often get jobs offers their junior year.