Ask HN: Distributed programming (computing) jobs?

I have experience in software engineering and I familiar with some distributed systems. I started reading "Distributed Computing: Principles, Algorithms, and Systems" book and I find it interesting so far. Also I found Seif Haridi YouTube channel is very helpful. Overall it seems to be a very interesting topic in software engineering. However I'm sceptical about opportunities in this field because I think it's very specific and based on my research there are a lot of companies that use distributed systems in their products and only few of them develop distributed systems. Also, I noticed that companies often use 'distributed-computing' term for their jobs where you will use Akka, Kafka and etc., and that makes it harder to find companies that develop distributed systems and platforms. So I'd like to ask a few questions:

1. Do you know any companies that develop distributed systems (for example PROTOCOL LABS) ? 2. Is it hard to find a job for a beginner distributed programming engineer ? 3. What is the minimum knowledge required to get a job ? 4. What is your personal experience of being a distributed programming engineer ? What is the future of distributed computing in your opinion ?

Once again, I'm not interested in jobs where I will use any distributed systems to build other products, I want to be an engineer that takes part in distributed systems development.

Any information would be appreciated.