HN is very in touch with a segment of the tech sector that has seen a huge downturn. If you’re asking about positions where you’ll be making 300k in 5 years as a software engineer, I would say you’ve come to the right place and you’re probably right that those positions are even harder to come by than they were before the downturn. (I don’t really know, though. I’m just a code monkey at a normal company.)
Regarding putting food on the table and living an extremely comfortable life as a software engineer, don’t worry lol. I’d imagine the average hired competent programmer is starting at the same thing as they were before the downturn (that is to say Amazon, Meta, Twitter, etc. haven’t had a statistically significant effect on the job market). Anecdotally, my fintech company is ramping up hiring tech right now. Take a deep breath and relax, you’re in a very safe industry. (Unless you’ll only be satisfied by 300k and up, in which case I have no idea what’s going on and can’t really relate anyway.) Most if not every company has software to build; you might not be the core value generation, but the pay is still way above what new hires are making outside of software.