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alephnerd | on: Domain expertise has always been the real moat
Not really. Most people continue to remain in a specific domain from their internship days, and professional networks develop.

Historically, startups were the traditional path for a generalist to build domain expertise because most startups couldn't be picky with talent, but the market has changed.

In all honesty, too much fat did develop in the tech industry over the last 6 years. Traditional hiring pipelines (eg. Limiting early career recruiting to grads from top 10-20 CS/ECE/EECS programs nationally along with Vets and some grads from decent regional programs) still net good calibre talent worth their weight in gold, but others just aren't working out.

adaml_623 | parent
I'm afraid you appear to be contradicting yourself by saying internship in one comment and stating that companies don't bother with onboarding employees with no knowledge in a previous comment.
alephnerd | root | parent
An internship is fine for onboarding becuase you aren't paying a FT employee level salary or benefits, and expectations are your hire is still learning but has some aptitude or interest in becoming a domain expert.

On the other hand, hiring a mid-career SWE who spent much of their career in one domain who is transitioning to another is a significant risk without additional social proof such as referrals where someone actually vouches for their skills.