As someone laid off from a smaller company, I’ve been competing for those jobs with the people laid off from the tech giants - for almost half a year now.

Same here. I think this month marks over 6months. What’s stranger is I don’t even see jobs in job boards anymore, at least not ones that don’t look shady. Most of what I see now on say… LinkedIn is spam postings from iffy looking recruiting firms and consultancies.

A lot of previous mega-corp SE's have unrealistic ideas of what normal salaries should be, leading to them being rejected based off salary demand, or rejecting offers themselves.

No, you aren't going to be paid $450k a year to work on our website... that is fantasy land.

There's so many tech jobs available at all sizes of companies, including mega-corps you've never heard of - they're just not as sexy as your FAANG's & co.

Nice try, but I’ve never worked at or even considered FAANG jobs.

Fair, then you shouldn't have much trouble locating a decent job if you're in the tech and/or software field. Despite FAANG layoffs, the field is booming.

Plenty of insurance companies, restaurant conglomerates, car dealership conglomerates, banks, manufacturing companies, big-AG, medicine, commercial property management companies - not to mention all the consulting companies adjacent to nearly every industry imaginable. They all need tech...

Tech != FAANG, was the point.

Fair enough, though I don’t touch consultancies. Which seem to be the mass of jobs I see right now.

There are plenty of job postings. I'm doubtful as to how many of them urgently need to be filled.

Nobody is reaching out to me... and I don't even see job openings I can send my resume anymore.

For example if go to "who is hiring" and do a search for c++ I find almost nothing. The few c++ Jobs that do exist require you to already live nearby because they can't offer relocation assistance or VISA sponsorship.

Meanwhile same search years ago I would find plenty of cool openings to send my resume to.

I am not even getting recruiter spam anymore where people offer me jobs that are unrelated to my skillset.

I was looking for a job 2-3 months ago and the market wasn’t great, but I got solid leads for C++ dev positions at a number of companies. Ended up calling off further contact since I luckily secured a position fairly quickly, but if you’re interested shoot me an e-mail (address in profile) and I’d be happy to forward you the details of the companies/positions.