This is anecdotal and purely vibes based so YMMV but my view is that it’s a lot worse looking if you’re restricting yourself to just Big Tech like all of the programming subreddits do. There’s tons of companies outside that sphere who need engineers, but too many programmers thing it’s MAANG or bust.

I am sure the smaller companies are inundated with applications too and have to be very choosy, with high rejection rates.