So, not trying to "flex" but in the past I've worked on projects even for Microsoft/darpa, won awards, now been developing alternatives to transformers for generative models in C and can't even get an interview after tens of applications? even $10/hour seems like a stretch...looks like it's all about connections now and any buzzword or "complex code" is immediately considered an ai-slop or far less impressive than it used to be? I'm considering a career change, I'm not greedy at all and frankly in my mid-30s age is a big negative factor (makes it worse when it's already pretty bad). Anyways, hope you retain your dev job if you have one or find something that pays well.