What i have observed, which is the hard (unpredictable) part for candidates is, they can't tell which kind of hiring manager they'll get. Some reject resumes with metrics, others use software that won't let the resume through without them. Most (non-subject matter experts) would just look for whatever they think will get past the filter.

what i am researching right now is if you (hiring manager) got 2 resumes from the same candidate, one hand-written (metaphorically) and the other built by chat-GPT or AI, which one would you call ?

The CV-to-six-months analogy is actually exactly right and it's also why benchmarks for hiring people stopped being useful. The signal that holds up is what you see when something breaks, which is hard to compress into a number.

this smells like an ai-generated comment so much

I have spoken to a couple of founders in the last few months and what I keep hearing isn't "we're not hiring" but "we're hiring fewer juniors and being pickier about the ones we take." The bar for what a screen actually tests for moved a lot in the last 18 months and most companies haven't caught up. Its like everyone has so much to absorb before they can decide who to pick. Most down-selected candidates have gone through 5-6 rounds of interview in their selection process.

I believe you are overthinking. The "where" that you are pointing in your message doesn't really change. Architecture still happens in the head (figuratively) of whoever has to maintain the thing in 12 months, AI just makes it arrive faster so you have less room to defer those calls. Hope it helps.

If you're genuinely fascinated by systems, yes is the answer. The point to understand is that the surface-level coding is what's getting cheaper, the systems work isn't.