Katherine Bindley and Joseph Pisani:

Postings for software development jobs are down more than 30% since February 2020, according to Indeed.com. Industry layoffs have continued this year with tech companies shedding around 137,000 jobs since January, according to Layoffs.fyi. Many tech workers, too young to have endured the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s, now face for the first time what it’s like to hustle to find work.

Company strategies are also shifting. Instead of growth at all costs and investment in moonshot projects, tech firms have become laser focused on revenue-generating products and services. They have pulled back on entry-level hires, cut recruiting teams and jettisoned projects and jobs in areas that weren’t huge moneymakers, including virtual reality and devices.

At the same time, they started putting enormous resources into AI. The release of ChatGPT in late 2022 offered a glimpse into generative AI’s ability to create humanlike content and potentially transform industries. It ignited a frenzy of investment and a race to build the most advanced AI systems. Workers with expertise in the field are among the few strong categories.