Ask HN: Is hardware design disappearing in EU?

I've been working for 10 years in hardware design (schematic, layout, product design, etc..) now, and I find that the available pool of jobs is thinning out very rapidly.

Most of what there's left is jobs where no actual design is happening, just fast prototyping and duct-taping raspberry pis and arduinos into something to get (mostly public) funding flowing for a while.

As someone who has work with high-value added technologies like DDR4 or PCI-e, I find my skills seem to be becoming less and less useful.

At the same time, all I hear is that rapid prototyping, 3D printing and fast PCB production are increasing the number of jobs, not decreasing them.

I find this situation very paradoxical, and I wonder if this kind of feeling is common between other professionals in this field.

Also, to take advantage of the super-technical audience on HN, I've been thinking if I could transition into a software development career, so any thoughts or advice on how to do that (my current programming professional experience is limited mostly to C) would be very helpful.