The explosion in VC capital has been primarily driven by a reach for yield among institutions, endowments, pensions and sovereign wealth funds. All of this money is extremely sticky, and once allocated will take 10+ years to de-allocate. So really the only way we see private equity funding collapse is if public equities quickly crater, forcing endowments to rebalance to stay in their allocation mandate.
And that could possibly happen, given how rich public equity valuations are. But the reality is the modern Fed is never again in our lifetime going to let nominal stock prices fall by 35% or more like they did in 2008. The traumas from the GFC are simply too ingrained in the current generation of central bankers and policy makers.
If push comes to shove and equities hit a bear market (20% drawdown), the Fed is going to turn the liquidity faucet to max. The forever war against Covid gives them a convenient excuse. In the scenario, you'll probably just see the Fed let inflation run hot at 10%+ for a few years. Again the Covid transitory narrative gives the cover.
Also, where else would they invest this money?
Office workers (including SWEs) in general benefited a lot because WFHing made the logistics of interviewing around significantly easier.
A lot of my old department at my previous company jumped ship for places that offered significantly more pay (specifically, tech companies) or better WFH policies. More people left in the span of a few months during the summer of 2021 than I recall leaving during my entire tenure there (7 years).
Speaking for myself, grinding leetcode in 2021 was very difficult because I was close to burning-out (very little outdoor recreation, blurred lines between work hours and non-work hours which resulted in me frequently working 9-11 hours per day (with breaks). I think it would have been easier pre-covid.
With in-person schools and daycares closed and the kids at home, there was no "downtime within working hours" - cue the working late at night after kids had gone to bed to make up for it (and the subsequent near-burnout experience).
Also, my recruiter told me they were seeing record-high post-screen interview cancellations by interviewees during COVID times - but perhaps their numbers were not representative. My suspicion is that there was a massive mental health disaster that was mostly hidden from view[1], and software engineers were not spared.
1. I wasn't even aware of my mental state until I started grinding leetcode and recognized the tell-tale signs of burnout as I had experienced full-blown burnout before (my self-motivation was reduced, but not yet gone)
The main reason I stay in my job is that our department is pro WFH.
WFH policy is as conservative and hostile as ever AFAIK.
2. It could lead to companies re-evaluating whether all their projects are worth it. Anecdotally, I have heard of some automation projects being cancelled as manual workers in other countries are cheaper.
If you look at the job market as a commodity where companies are on the buy side and workers are on the sell side you could say that the price of the commodity spiked suddenly. Whenever that happens I'm usually wary of the corrections that surely follow.
That could mean mass layoffs in the future when companies realize the commodity isn't worth that much. It could mean business closings due to lack of purchase power to compete. It could mean inflation to adjust the purchase power.
Again it's all speculation. And it's derived from risk tolerance. If you like risky investments it makes sense to try to capitalize and sell your labor for the most you can. I can't blame you.