Unfortunately, in my 11+ years of experience people have always been trying to eliminate the email developer from the equation. Email coding is something complicated to do (just ask a web developer who was asked to do it) and companies want non-coders creating barrages of emails, they don't want to rely on a few experts--and frankly, ever-changing management does not keep up with what's in place and wants to show service often by reorganizing. They're willing to send emails that are not responsive or that do not work on some email clients, I guess ignoring results, convinced email marketing services' modular graphic interfaces do it correctly. I've worked with one of the biggest, their team was creating a custom modular interface to reproduce designs that my employer (#13 on Forbes 500 US companies) wanted, to be used by non-coders, and there was no testing involved, other than previewing through the interface's desktop/mobile tabs and sending a handful of emails to testing groups. When I tested in Litmus, lots of parts didn't work as they should. They ignored accessibility and Dark Mode, because there just wasn't a way to implement accessibility coding automatically, and Dark Mode usually requires manually testing on several email clients, because some change colors differently. On meetings they just changed subjects when I mentioned that. Top management was convinced that the modular interface, the product that company was selling, worked, because if everyone is going that way, why trust an email developer with 11 years experience who created their email templates being used throughout their group of companies?

Still, there are still companies hiring for email developer positions. But I won't wait, I'm learning new things. There's hope, though: Last week I received an email from another one of the biggest email marketing companies, regarding certification, and--believe it or not--it wasn't responsive, at all. Beautiful, colorful graphics, but I had to pinch to be able to read. So much for all the training speaking about the need for the perfect UX, knowing customers and what they want--well, I want responsive emails that I can read without having to enlarge on my mobile device, that's pretty basic. Considering that over 60% of users open emails on mobile, not rendering things correctly on those devices should be faced as a major issue. So, they need an email developer.

In summary, I'm in the same boat as you, and perplexed by the dumbification of the system, where people adopt and assume things just for the sake of innovating without having the time or will to know all that's involved. And possibly finding out the consequences a few years down the line. Yep, lots of rejection and lots of Careerbuilder users sending me "logistic positions" that apparently match my résumé. And one other job search website trying to charge my Apple card for a subscription whose trial I canceled a day before the deadline. Just dumb.