Remember the "maker movement"? "Maker Spaces?" That was supposed to help restart hardware prototyping in the US. It didn't. The original TechShop in Silicon Valley was kind of like that. People were making rocket components for the X-Prize. But over time, it turned into a factory for Etsy junk. The concept of "hand made" items made on a CNC laser cutter was a bit much, but it kept about eight laser cutters busy at th…
Even professional electrical engineering shops rarely build their own stuff anymore - specialized assembly houses do the work.
This is the flip side of efficiency achieved through specialization - most pro hardware "STEM" jobs consist of manipulating computer files in various formats and passing the buck to some stranger to do the actual construction. Unfortunately, this leaves a pretty big monetary gap between "circuit stuff as a hobby" and "I want to make a serious product using the best technologies available"