The market is shrinking, the pressure to review code is so high, I'm kinda relieved to not be at the $last_place anymore, but looking on LinkedIn or calling around my network... there isn't a lot out there.
It takes me generally 3 months to find a good job, and while the industry is changing I suspect you'll be ok. Nobody I know is hunting for jobs.
Hang in there
He needs to prepare the best he can and be aggressively proactive right now.
Haven't gotten serious about applying, but zero serious inbound and nothing from my network. Not even a call; few cancelled calls.
AI app submissions has destroyed hiring so bad too. We were sifting through hundreds of resume submissions. Then went through tons of interviews without finding someone.
I'm resigned that it'll be a while. And I might get a role I apply for months after the fact.
A lot of my gig work comes from non-technical people who started down the path with vibe-coding and need bailed out. I foresee a future where I'm overseeing a larger portfolio of projects that just need me to keep things from going off the rails completely.