Something I've been noticing lately is that a lot of high growth teams in tech have completely done away with hiring new juniors / new grad programs. They are just hiring senior engineers and especialyl now they are able to do more than ever before.

Some of it is due to the market, but I feel that it's also because smaller teams tend to perform better. Having a bunch of new grads to mentor give guidance to was a longer term investment. Now even managers are shifting back towards IC work.

However, the downside of all this is the large deficit of new talent to. It'll make the industry even more supply side constrained on talent. And it's only a matter of time until the industry really feels that because all these new ventures still require talent. This might even mean that engineer pay will go up even more.