> I hope some experienced people in the industry can give some hope and advice. Is demoralizing to find out I spent 4 years in school just to get into a really harsh job market. First pandemic, then recession? F...
Overall, I'd say relax a bit. You're still in a good situation. Recessions are hard for many, but software engineers were among the best off during the last one and I expect will be this time also.
> I wanna know if during recessions recruiting slows down even for big profitable companies.
I remember Google's recruiting slowed down in ~2008. [edit: 2009? Maybe not right at the start of the recession.] [1] So sometimes yes. On the bright side, it's rare for profitable large tech companies to lay off software engineers, so if you get in, you're pretty safe.
Even at startups, I don't expect a universal freeze. I asked an external recruiter (that is, someone who recruits for a variety of startups) a couple days ago about the present situation. She told me some companies she works with have done hiring freezes, others are still desperate to hire. There are opportunities. I'm not a good enough business person to give you solid general advice about which startups will be most resilient, though.
If you are good enough and/or persistent enough, my feeling is there will be a place for you in tech. (Even if, for example, you freeze up during coding interviews. Some companies do these, others don't. There's enough variety that you can still be okay if you don't have your sights set on a particular company.)
If you are not, there's almost certainly still a place for you as a software engineer in a stable, non-tech company or government position. Non-tech typically isn't as lucrative, but you can be comfortable. My feeling is many of these places have a tremendous need for just basic automation. Arguably more so during a recession, although they may not all realize this.
I started my career not long before the last recession. I didn't have any real existing savings to lose. Then I was earning far in excess of my needs and investing much of the rest in index funds (e.g. VTI) when stock prices were low. The recession ended and stock prices soared. I feel scummy saying this about many people's suffering, but the recession worked out well for me.
[1] Personally I think this was a mistake. They could have hired a lot of great people during this time. "Be bold when others are fearful." They had solid financial footing for hiring, and if nothing else, they could have put a fair number of folks on efficiency projects that would have more than paid their way in machine costs.