The connection between top-rated computer science schools and the largest tech companies has previously functioned a bit like the largest gas pipelines—well-oiled, dependable, lucrative, and controversial. Glossy tech companies touted themselves as dream workplaces with unbelievable salaries—entry-level software engineers made as much as $183,000 at Google in recent years—and jobs fit for the brightest minds. That provided a regular injection of young and eager workers, but also created a system criticized for ignoring talent with nontraditional resumes or backgrounds. 

Many students at elite schools bought into the marketing, shooting for the prestige, status, and salary associated with a job at a company like Google or Facebook. Though the largest tech companies are now more institutions than disruptive upstarts—often giving interns and new hires small, siloed tasks within their vast ecosystems—the combination of six-figure starting salaries with a top tech brand has remained compelling.

“Understandably parental pressure is often focused on the seeming stability of these big companies,” Ralph says. “In the past few years especially, many smaller companies struggled to hire.” 

Yet the fact that layoffs haven’t excluded the graduates of the top schools cleanly illustrates an argument that labor experts, computer science professors, and unions have been trying to make for years: The skills required for most of the jobs that power these larger institutions do not actually require degrees from the world’s premier computer science programs. If they did, Meta would hardly have choked off the internship pipeline it had spent years building, risking losing the trust of a generation of elite college graduates.

Ralph encourages students feeling let down by that shift to instead consider the benefits of smaller companies. Because they can’t pay top-notch salaries or trade on a glitzy name, they have more incentive to hire engineers and interns with skills they actually need. And they also must make more of an effort to retain them by giving them substantive work and building inclusive workplaces cultures. “I’ve long been a proponent of small- and medium-size engineering firms. We cap the number of large firms that join our partner program,” Ralph says. 

Despite the recent layoffs, tech jobs themselves are still abundant. While industry job postings have fallen slightly, the number of openings is about the same volume as in early 2018, according to data from industry group CompTIA’s January tech jobs report. But many of those jobs aren’t at the giant, household-name employers anymore. More than half of all tech jobs are actually outside the tech industry entirely, in fields like health care and finance, CompTIA data shows.

Some recent grads have begun rethinking their ambitions. Noah Backman, who graduated from University of Missouri with a degree in computer science in December, has started to accept this reality. “When it comes to type of work, I have deviated a little bit away from just software engineering, and I’m starting to look more at IT roles,” he says.