Being in Spain kind of explains the difference. There’s a big push for offshoring US software engineering jobs right now, and I know Spain is one of the countries where some dev jobs are being offshored to (along with Eastern Europe, LATAM, and India). I’ve interviewed with a few startups, and their dev teams where in India, and they just wanted a US tech-lead/manager.

Problem is students treat traditional 4 year colleges like job training, which they aren’t, and employers require degrees when they’re not needed.

May depend on location and experience. I used to have so many recruiters contacting me on LinkedIn (1-2 years ago), I hid my account. Now, when I’m actually looking for a job, I get maybe 1 random recruiter contact me per month, and then ghost me even before the first call. I’ve probably applied to over 750 job postings, had maybe 7-8 interviews, and no offers. 14 yoe, mostly in web-dev at small companies and startups with unrecognizable names; my last role was staff-level. The city I live in is probably one of the most impacted by tech layoffs; was one of the cities tons of people and businesses flocked to during covid, now it’s shedding businesses, jobs, and software engineers.