Plenty of graduates specifically don't work in systems engineering for different reasons - its not like there is a dearth of people with degrees. The jobs in say embedded programming are fewer, harder to get, and tend to pay worse unless you're at the top of the market.

If you're at Meta making an OS for VR, you're at the top of the market and getting paid very well. If you're at Cisco making router firmware, or F5 making DNS boxes, you're likely getting paid far worse than at equivalent experience to say a web dev - for which there is a lot more work. Employment mobility is far far lower when doing embedded work.