How hard is it to get a job in your field?

I hate to say but it seems like you made up your mind.

But if you are looking for a little advice, from reasons you established, I'd stay at the current company and learn the software. The only problem is that by accepting the other company and if you were to accept the counter offer, it would 100% put a target on your back for HR and if you aren't able to cut it you are first to go.

Hard question to answer but I do have recruiters hitting me up often

First priority should be stability. How worried are you that the company run by the 80 year old could leave you without a job or any type of income stress.

Second is the type of work, clearly you like that old place better.

The move seems like a good choice but since the reason you left is still the same doesn't make sense to go back.

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My husband was offered considerably more but in a small industry that he would be burning large bridges moving in.

If your new boss passes tomorrow, will it be hard to find a similar paying job? If the answer is no, then go where you are happy.

Its possible but not likely. My boss for instance almost left the company for an offer but stayed after a counter.

The question you have to ask yourself is if you were worth the counter offer, why weren't they paying you that in the first place?

The second question is that if you do take the counter, now that you've received a 20% increase, what are your next few annual increases going to look like? Will they be normal or will they cut back and say "well, we did give you that nice bump in 2023...".

My dad was a senior exec for a Fortune 500 company for decades. He always used to say that any employee that accepted a counter offer would be put on a dead end track because he knew they were a "flight risk". Couldn't trust them with "critical" projects because they couldn't be 100% trusted. While the working world now is very, very different than when he worked it's something that still sticks with me.

NGL, $25k wouldn't have been enough for me to switch unless I had seen concrete plans that my previous concerns about longevity/stability of the company had been addressed. That's barely 15% and if there's no succession plan in place and something happens in the next few months? Yikes.

I'd stick where you are.