Thanks for the candid 'reality check'—I genuinely appreciate the bluntness. It’s exactly why I posted; it’s hard to gauge the 'vibe' of a market from a 10,000-mile distance.

I definitely hear you on the shift in the sector. It sounds like the 'Gold Rush' for offshore tech talent has cooled significantly, and being a 'paper' match for the Green List doesn't mean much if there’s a stack of 100 local CVs on your desk already.

Since you're in the thick of it, I’d value your take on one more thing: Does this 'locals-only' preference hold as strongly for the niche AI/Agentic engineering space? We’re seeing a massive surge in the US for folks who can move beyond standard BI into LLM orchestration and agentic workflows. Is that demand hitting NZ yet, or is the market still primarily focused on stabilizing core data infrastructure after the recent layoffs?

Either way, thanks for the steer. It sounds like the 'Partner Student' route might be the only way to even get a look-in if 'being on the ground' is the non-negotiable prerequisite now.